Sidewalk Chalk (Encore)

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Get more Nothing Much Happens with bonus episodes, extra long stories, and ad free listening, all while supporting the show you love. Subscribe Now. Welcome to Bedtime Stories for Everyone in which Nothing Much Happens. You feel good and then you fall asleep. I'm Kathryn Nicolai. I write and read all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens. Audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. Just like you can condition your muscles, you can condition your brain to fall asleep and return to sleep more quickly and easily. And the good news is that all you need to do to accomplish this is to listen. The more regularly you use the show, the better. Most listeners report best results after about a month of regular use. I'll tell the story twice and I'll go a little slower the second time through. If you wake in the night, don't hesitate to turn an episode right back on. Our story tonight is called Sidewalk Chalk and it's a story about a journey through the park on a bright day. It's also about a cold drink from the coffee shop, a frog blinking from a pond, Alice and the caterpillar, birch trees and drawings on the sidewalk paying more attention when small happy moments wash over you. I grew up in Flint, Michigan, so I've never taken clean water for granted. I know what it means to worry about what's coming out of your tap and what a relief it is when you don't have to. That's why I just bought a second Aqua True Water Purifier for our cottage on my own dime. I loved it that much in my house. It's just part of our daily ritual now. Coffee, tea, soup, the dog bowls. It all starts with Aquatru. Aqua True purifiers use a four stage reverse osmosis process to remove 15 times more contaminants than ordinary pitcher filters. Stuff like PFAS, lead, arsenic, chlorine, microplastics. All the things I absolutely don't want in my body or my family's. 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Nice warm one more breathe in and out. Good Sidewalk Chalk the sunshine and warm weather was back. The storms last week had been a nice reprieve. The grass was green, the flowers looked refreshed, and the lily pads in the pond seemed to have doubled in number in the last few days. I'd felt the urge to get out and catch some sun on my face, so I'd wandered into the park downtown. The coffee shop on Main street had kombucha on tap, and I had a tall, icy cup of it in my hand as I strolled past the newspaper kiosk at the entrance. The paved path circling the pond was busy with walkers and strollers, and I turned at a fork to go deeper into a wooded area. I love that feeling of, even in the middle of town, being able to suddenly step into wilderness and nature. The bird song rose around me like the volume dial had just been turned up and a chipmunk crossed in front of me, his cheeks bulging with forage snacks. I sighed as I passed under the shade a giant oak tree. The wind blew and a few leftover raindrops that had been clinging to its leaves fell to my face and arms. I sipped at my tea, tart and floral. I thought it had been elderberry or huckleberry lemon. Either way, it was delicious, and I caught myself feeling truly happy, contented. I'd realized these moments flicker through my days all the time, like sunlight filtering down to the sidewalk through the leaves, and I'd been trying to pay more attention to them, to let them take up more space in my mind by simply witnessing them with my eyes wide open, my senses alert. It was as if I was marking them down, like a hatch mark chalked on a wall, an accounting of the goodness in my days. A small, murky pool had formed from the rain around a stand of birch trees, and as I passed it, a sudden movement caught my eye. It was immediately followed by a plop, and I realized I'd startled a frog. I stopped to wait for him to surface. Sure enough, a few seconds later, a tiny, curved head and two round, blinking eyes peered up at me. I could just see his limbs floating beneath the waterline as ripples streamed away in concentric circles. I thought of a haiku I'd read from the book on my bedside table, the Old Pond. A Frog jumps in the sound of the water. It had been written by a poet named Matsuo basho, who died 300 years before I'd been born and lived in a land 6,000 miles away, yet we'd both noted the same moment. He described exactly how it felt to be here right now. I smiled at the frog, finding the continuity from Basho to me a comfort and a joy. The path took me out of the copse of trees and into an orderly garden full of lavender, delphinium, and foxglove. There were neat boxwoods and topiaries carved into cones, spirals, and giant toadstools. What a difference from the wild I'd just stepped out of. I almost expected to see the Queen of Hearts marching toward me. I looked down at the path and saw that someone else must have had the same thought. There was a white rabbit sketched with sidewalk chalk on the pavement. Beside it was a pocket watch on a gold chain and a teapot. All of the drawings were a little bit faded, and I guessed they'd been made just before the rain had fallen. I paused, wondering if I'd dropped out of the poetry of Basho and down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. I remembered a flyer I'd seen at the coffee shop while waiting for my drink order, a program run by the library. What had it said? Something like Stories and sidewalk chalk. I'd been skimming it when they called my name and hadn't picked up much of what it was about, but clearly it was just like it sounded. I imagined a librarian telling about Alice on the Cheshire Cat, drawing out models with tags attached and playing cards, and I felt a bit disappointed that I'd missed it. Grown ups like stories, too. In the next section of Pavement, the kids must have been encouraged to draw characters from the story, and I spotted what I thought might have been the Mad Hatter and the Caterpillar. There was also a dinosaur Bingo. And what I was pretty sure was Cookie Monster, so they'd added a bit of their own favorites. At the edge of the flower garden was a small wooden box on a stand, sort of like the little libraries in my own neighborhood where you could borrow and lend books. But this one was full to bursting with colored chalk, dusty cylinders in shades of pink and green and yellow, some fresh and unused, others smaller and broken, gathered in an old coffee cup. Chalked on the pavement below the box were the simple words Express yourself. What a delightful invitation. I sorted through the clinking pieces and sat down on the path. I drew a bit a tree, a bluebird, a rainbow with fluffy white clouds on either end. I drew the frog floating in the pool and the chipmunk with his stuffed cheeks. I went back to the faded images drawn by the storyteller. I did my best to color them back in retracing so that they would last a few more days. I thought about the poem in the woods, the story in the garden, and the attempt I'd been making to witness more of the good things that happened in my orbit. I took a blue stick of chalk back to the edge of the tree line. There was another line of poetry that had been drifting through my mind, a line by the profound and beautiful Mary Oliver. I sketched it out on the path, hoping that the next person who saw it would be likewise inspired. I stood back and whispered her instructions for living a life. She wrote, pay attention. Be amazed. Tell about it. Sidewalk chalk. The sunshine and warm weather was back. The storms last week had been a nice reprieve. The grass was green, the flowers looked refreshed, and the lily pads in the pond seemed to have doubled in number in the last few days. I'd felt the urge to get out and catch some sun on my face, so I'd wandered into the park downtown. The coffee shop on Main street had kombucha on tap, and I had a tall, icy cup of it in my hand as I strolled past the newspaper kiosk at the entrance. The paved path circling the pond was busy with walkers and strollers, and I turned at a fork to go deeper into a wooded area. I love that feeling of even in the middle of town being able to suddenly step into wilderness and nature. The bird song rose around me like the volume dial had just been turned up, and a chipmunk crossed in front of me, his cheeks bulging with foraged snacks. I sighed as I passed under the shade of a giant oak tree. The wind blew and a few leftover raindrops that had been clinging to its leaves fell to my face and arms. I sipped at my tea, tart and floral. I thought it had been elderberry or huckleberry lemon. Either way, it was delicious, and I caught myself feeling truly happy and contented. I'd realized these moments flicker through my days all of the time, like sunlight filtering down to the sidewalk through the leaves, and I'd been trying to pay more attention to them, to let them take up more space in my mind by simply witnessing them with my eyes wide open, my senses alert. It was as if I was marking them down, like a hatch mark chalked onto a wall, an accounting of the goodness in my days. A small murky pool had formed from the rain around a stand of birch trees, and as I passed it, a sudden movement caught my eye. It was immediately followed by a plop, and I realized I'd startled the frog. I stopped to wait for him to surface. Sure enough, a few seconds later, a tiny, curved head and two round, blinking eyes peered up at me. I could just see his limbs floating beneath the waterline as ripples streamed away in concentric circles. I thought of a haiku I'd read in the books on my bedside table, the Old Pond. A Frog Jumps in the Sound of Water. It had been written by a poet named Matsuo basho, who died 300 years before I'd been born and lived in a land 6,000 miles away. Yet we'd both noted the same moment. He'd described exactly how it felt to be here right now. I smiled at the frog, finding the continuity from Basho to me a comfort and a joy. The path took me out of the copse of trees and into an orderly garden full of lavender, delphinium, and foxglove. There were neat boxwoods and topiaries carved into cones, spirals, and giant toadstools. What a difference from the wild I just stepped out of. I almost expected to see the Queen of Hearts marching toward me. I looked down at the path and saw that someone must have had the same thought. There was a white rabbit sketched with sidewalk chalk on the pavement. Beside it was a pocket watch on a gold chain and a teapot. All of the drawings were a bit faded, and I guessed they'd been made just before the rain had fallen. I paused, wondering if I'd dropped out of the poetry of Basho and down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. I remembered a flyer I'd seen at the coffee shop while waiting for my drink order, a program run by the library. What had it said? Something like Stories and Sidewalk chalk. I'd been skimming it when they called my name and hadn't picked up much of what it was about, but clearly it was just like it sounded. I imagined a librarian telling about Alice and the Cheshire Cat, drawing out bottles with tags attached and playing cards, and felt a bit disappointed that I'd missed It grown ups like stories, too. In the next section of Pavement, the kids must have been encouraged to draw characters from the story, and I spotted what I thought might have been the Mad Hatter and the Caterpillar. There was also a dinosaur Bingo. And what I was pretty sure was Cookie Monster, so they'd added a bit of their own favorites. At the edge of the flower garden was a small wooden box on a stand, sort of like the little libraries in my own neighborhood where you could borrow and lend books. But this one was full to bursting with colored chalk, dusty cylinders, and shades of pink and green and yellow, some fresh and unused, others smaller and broken, gathered in an old coffee cup. Chalked on the pavement below the box were the simple words Express yourself. What a delightful invitation. I sorted through the clinking pieces and sat down on the path. I drew a bit a tree, a bluebird, a rainbow with fluffy white clouds on either end. I drew the frog floating in the pool and the chipmunk with his stuffed cheeks. I went back to the faded images drawn by the storyteller and did my best to color them back in retracing so that they would last for a few more days. I thought about the poem in the woods, The story in the garden, and the attempt I'd been making to witness more of the good things that happened in my orbit. I took a blue stick of chalk back to the edge of the tree line. There was another line of poetry that had been drifting through my mind, a line by the profound and beautiful Mary Oliver. I sketched it out on the path, hoping the next person who saw it would be likewise inspired. I stood back and whispered her instructions for living a life. She wrote, Pay attention. Be amazed. Tell about it. Sweet dreams.