← Listen To Sleep - Quiet Bedtime Stories & Meditations
Listen To Sleep - Quiet Bedtime Stories & Meditations
The Long Way Home - A Sleepy Tale of Two Dogs, a Mountain, and What They Learned Along the Way
00:44:42
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- [00:01]
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Hey, it's Eric. Before we begin tonight's episode, just a quick reminder, you're about to hear a few ads that help to support Listen to Sleep. If you'd rather drift off without them, you can join Listen to Sleep plus and get every episode ad free plus bonus stories and meditations. Just go to ListenToSleep.com and click on Support to learn more. Skip the gym, not the Workout With Hydro, you get a full body workout in just 20 minutes, hitting 86% of your muscles in one smooth, low impact motion. And now there's the new Hydro arc, Hydro's most advanced rower yet. ARC introduces hydrometrics tracking your power, endurance and precision every time you row so you can actually see your Progress. Go to hydro.com and use code row to get $100 off any hydro rower, including ARC. That's H Y--R-O-W.com code RO we live.
- [01:02]
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- [02:42]
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Hey friends, it's Eric welcome to another relaxing episode of Of Listen to Sleep. I want to start out with a little story from my week. It leads into what this week's bedtime story is about. I had a moment this week where I had to let go of something I'd been trying to control. It was a project that wasn't working the way I'd envisioned it, and I noticed how much energy I'd been spending trying to force it into the shape I thought it should take instead of letting it become what it actually wanted to be. So I closed the computer and took the boys for a walk. And that's when I noticed Bode's getting older and he's changing, moving a little slower, needing more rest, not always charging ahead like he used to. And there's this part of me that wants to keep him the same, wants him to stay the strong, tireless dog he's always been. But for him, well, he seems completely, completely at peace with this slower pace. He's not fighting it or resenting it. He's just adapting. And he's teaching me something about the difference between giving up and letting go. About how much harder we make things when we resist. What is. There's a kind of wisdom that only comes from letting go, from releasing our grip on how we think things should be and meeting what actually is. Tonight's story is about that. It follows two dogs who get separated from their human on a mountain trail. What they discover in Being Lost teaches them about how adaptation, about trusting themselves and each other, and about the difference between giving up and letting go. It's a quiet journey to finding your way home by being fully present for each step. Before we begin tonight's story, I want to share something with you. Creating Listen to Sleep is my life's work and your support means everything. If these episodes help you find peace, please consider joining Listen to Sleep plus for less than a latte each month you'll get ad free episodes with no interruptions, plus extended readings not released anywhere else. You can join@listentosleep.com support support. Or now you can subscribe directly in Apple Podcasts where you can also get a seven day free trial. Let's take a deep breath in and out, letting go of the day, feeling the weight of gravity pulling you deep down into the mattress and another deep breath in and out. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to be. This is your time. Quiet time. One more deep breath in with me and out if you get tired while I'm reading to you. That's okay. Just let yourself drift off the long way home. The mountain road stretched ahead, dusty and pale under the afternoon light. The old man walked steady and slow, Body and Joey moving just beyond his shadow. At the pond, Joey drank first, quick, eager laps that shattered his reflection. Bodie drank beside him, lowering his head with the deliberate care of his 10 years. The water tasted of stone and sky. Above the far ridge, dark clouds had begun to gather. They walked on to their favorite viewpoint, where two weathered chairs faced the valley, taking in the scent of all those afternoons the old man had spent there with his husband. Joey stalked Body. Then he barked, sharp and bright, and bolted toward him. They played rough, chasing each other through the coyote brush. Then Body took off down the road, and without thinking, Joey followed after him, their paws drumming against the earth. Two dogs lost in the simple joy of the chase. They didn't know yet that this morning would change everything. The game carried them around a bend, past a stand of maples still holding their last golden leaves. Joey veered off the road onto a narrow trail, Body following. They crashed through the undergrowth, over fallen logs, deeper into territory that smelled of deer and bear and the particular dampness of. Of places where sunlight rarely reaches. When they finally stopped, panting, tongues lolling, the road was nowhere to be seen. Joey barked once, a question aimed at the silence. No answer came. He barked again, sharper this time, and started back the way they'd come. But the way they'd come looked like every other direction. Trees and more trees, slopes rising and falling. No clear path. Bodie stood still, his nose lifted, sorting through scents. He caught pine moss, water somewhere close, but nothing of the old man. No wool jacket, no coffee, no worn leather of the walking stick. Joey began to run, first one direction, then. Then another, his body a frantic comma against the forest floor. He barked and barked, the sound swallowed by the trees. Bodhi tried to follow, but his older legs couldn't match the younger dog's panic. He stopped at the edge of a small clearing and howled, a sound that came from somewhere deep, somewhere ancient. The forest absorbed it and gave nothing back. By the time Joey circled back to him, both dogs were breathing hard. The light had changed. The storm that had been gathering on the ridge was moving closer, and the temperature was dropping. They needed to find shelter. Bodhi started moving downhill, not running now, but walking with purpose. Water flows down. People live near water. It was something, at least. Joey followed, no longer ranging ahead, staying close to Body's shoulder. They found a pond just as the first drops began to fall. It was a smaller One than the one they'd drunk from that morning, ringed by rocks and fed by a thin stream that tumbled down from somewhere above. There was an overhang on the far side, not quite a cave, but enough to offer some protection. The rain came harder. Thunder rolled across the mountains, and Joey pressed himself against Bodie's flank, shaking. Body's heart was pounding too, but he made himself lie down, made himself breathe slowly. After a moment, Joey stopped shaking and lay down too, his head resting across Body's foreleg. The storm moved over them and away. The rain softened to mist, then stopped altogether. Evening came on, the light going blue and then gray in the stillness that followed, with their bodies finally motionless, they began to notice things they'd been too frightened to see. The way the pond's surface had gone smooth as glass, reflecting the darkening sky. The smell of wet earth and stone. The sound of water moving over rocks, not chaotic, but rhythmic, almost like breathing. Joey's eyes were wide, staring out at the unfamiliar landscape, but Bodies were starting to close, his body surrendering to exhaustion. They were lost. They were alone, but they were together, and the mountain held them as it held all things, without judgment or hurry. Morning came slowly to the mountain pond, the light arriving in degrees. First, the sky above the eastern ridge turned from black to charcoal. Then the water began to separate itself from the surrounding darkness, becoming its own thing again. A surface, a mirror, a presence. Joey woke first. His body was stiff from sleeping, curled against stone, and his stomach felt hollow and urgent. He stood, shook himself, and looked at Bodhi, still lying in the shadows of the overhang. The older dog's eyes were open, but he wasn't moving. Joey whined softly. Let's go. We need to find him. We need to move. He took a few steps toward the water, looked back. Body still hadn't risen. Joey returned and nudged Body's shoulder with his nose, then his muzzle, more insistently. Body made a low sound in his throat. Not yet. His hind legs were folded beneath him at an awkward angle. 10 years of hiking and running and playing had left their mark in his joints, and after a cold night on stone, his body needed time to remember how to unfold. Joey paced to the water's edge and back, to the edge and back. His whole being wanted to run, to search, to do something. The cattle dog in him couldn't bear this stillness when there was work to be done, a problem to solve, someone to find. But Bode didn't move. So Joey stood there, vibrating with frustrated energy, watching the older dog slowly shift his weight Stretch one front leg, then the other. The process seemed to take forever. In his forced waiting, Joey's attention began to wander. He noticed how the mist was rising from the pond's surface in threads and wisps, disappearing into air as if the water was breathing. He watched a small bird land on a branch overhanging the pond, preen its feathers fly away. Another came and took its place. The light continued to change. What had been gray became touched with gold where the sun was finding its way through the trees on the eastern slope. Body finally stood, his movements careful and deliberate. He walked to the water and drank for a long time. Joey joined him and they stood side by side, their reflections wavering on the surface. One gray and grizzled, one tan and white and lean. When Bodhi finally lifted his head, he didn't immediately start walking. Instead, he stood looking out across the pond, his ears forward, his body alert but not tense. He was reading the morning the temperature, the wind, the sound of birds and water and rustling leaves. Joey wanted to bolt. Every fiber in him wanted to run down the first trail they found and keep running until they found the old man. But something about Bodie's stillness held him there. So he looked where Body was looking beyond the pond. The forest rose on all sides except where the thin stream entered from above. That stream would lead somewhere. Water always did. But Body wasn't looking at the stream. He was watching a place where the trees thinned on the far side of the pond. Joey followed his gaze and saw it. A break in the forest. Maybe a trail, maybe just a deer path, but something. Body started walking, not quickly, but with purpose. His gait was stiff at first, but with each step it loosened. Joey fell in beside him, matching his pace. Instead of racing ahead, they circled the pond slowly. Joey's legs wanted to move faster, but he stayed with Body. And in staying, he began to notice things he would have missed in running. The way the ground sloped, which direction felt downhill, the scent of oaks giving way to the scent of firs, the distant sound of rushing water. More than just a small stream, something larger. When they reached the break in the trees, it was indeed a trail, faint but visible. It led downward through a corridor of Douglas fir, the forest floor carpeted in rust colored needles. Bodhi paused at the trail's entrance, sniffing the air. Joey waited beside him, his body taut but no longer frantic. He'd learned something in that long morning wait. That stillness could yield information. That observation was a kind of movement, too. When Body started down the trail, Joey didn't Race ahead to scout. He stayed close, walking in the older dog's wake, trusting that slow could also be fast enough. The trail descended steadily, switching back and forth across the mountainside. The sound of rushing water grew louder. They were moving towards something now, not just away from being lost. And in Joey's chest, beneath the urgency and fear, something else was growing. A thin thread of attention, of presence, of noticing the world as it was rather than as he needed it to be. The morning warmed. Light filtered through the canopy in shafts and columns and they kept walking. By midday they'd descended far enough that the forest had changed character. The high altitude firs gave way to bay trees and patches of willow. The air was warmer here, less sharp and carrying the smell of sun warmed earth and dry grass. The sound of rushing water had grown from a distant murmur to a steady roar. When they finally reached it, they found a creek swollen with yesterday's storm, moving fast over rocks and fallen timber, cutting a channel 15ft wide through a narrow ravine. Bodie stopped at the bank, his body going still in the way it did when he was assessing danger. The water was brown with sediment, moving too fast to see the bottom. Crossing it would mean committing without knowing what lay beneath. Whether the rocks were stable, whether the current would knock a dog off balance, whether the far side even offered a place to climb out. Joey paced along the bank, upstream and down, his eyes scanning. Bodhi watched him, waiting to choose their path. But something in his chest felt tight. The old man had always trusted Bodhi to make these decisions. Which trail to take, when to stop, whether something was safe. Bodhi had been the steady one, the reliable one, the dog who kept everyone safe. But his legs were already tired, his joints ached. And looking at that fast water, he felt something unfamiliar. Uncertainty. Joey had moved about 30 yards upstream, where a massive pine had fallen across the creek. The tree was thick enough that it hadn't washed away and its trunk formed a bridge of sorts. But it was slick with moss and spray and the water churned white just beneath it. Joey barked once, sharp, insistent. Come look. Body made his way upstream, picking his path carefully over the rocky bank. When he reached Joey, he saw what the younger dog had found. The fallen tree did form a bridge, but more than that, a series of boulders on the near side created a natural ramp up to the trunk. And on the far side, the tree had caught against the bank in a way that made the descent less steep. It was still dangerous. The wood was wet. One misstep would mean falling into that churning water. Joey didn't Wait for permission. He hopped up onto the first boulder, then the second. His body light and sure, he stepped onto the tree trunk. Bod's instinct was to bark, to. To stop him, to take the lead and test it first. But the sound caught in his throat. Joey moved across the trunk like water itself, fluid, responsive, his paws finding purchase on bark and knot, his body low and balanced. He never hesitated. Halfway across, he paused and looked back, his tail giving a single wag. It's safe. Come on. Body climbed onto the boulders. His paws felt heavy, clumsy. The trunk was narrower than it had looked from below. The water roared beneath, pulling at his attention, making him dizzy. He took one step onto the wood. His paw slipped slightly, and his heart lurched. Joey barked from the other side. Not the frantic bark of yesterday's panic, but something clear and steady and encouragement. An anchor. Bod took another step and another. He kept his attention on Joey, on that tan and white shape waiting for him, patient and sure. Not on the water, not on his fear, not on the voice in him that said he was too old for this, too slow, too uncertain. Just on Joey. When his front paws touched the far bank, Joey was there, pressing his shoulder against Bode's chest in that way dogs do when they want to share warmth and presence. They stood like that for a moment, breathing together. Then Joey turned and started down a trail that led away from the creek, back into the forest. He looked back once to make sure Body was following. And Body followed. Something in him eased. Some tension. He'd been carrying for so long, he'd forgotten it was there. The need to always know the way, the need to always be certain. The need to protect everyone, to make every decision, to never show weakness or doubt. Joey didn't need him to be that. Joey needed him to trust, to follow, to let someone else lead when leading was what was needed. They walked through a golden afternoon, thick with the slant of autumn light. Joey moved with new confidence, his head up, his pace steady. When the trail forked, he'd pause and sniff the air, choose a direction, and Bode would follow without question. The land began to feel less wild, more touched by human presence. They passed a fire ring, cold and full of last season's ash. A rusted coffee can hanging from a tree branch. Trail markers, faded but visible, nailed to tree trunks. They were getting closer to something, to people, to roads, to the world they'd left behind. And for the first time in his 10 years, Bodie understood that yielding and letting go could be its own kind of strength. They walked until the light began to fail. The trail had led them to an old logging road, overgrown but still visible as two parallel tracks through the forest. It meant people had been there once. It meant they might be heading in the right direction. But the day was ending and both dogs were tired in a way that went deeper than muscle and bone. Joey found the place, a broad meadow where the road opened out, ringed by pines that stood like silent guardians. The grass was tall and golden, gone to seed, bending in waves when the wind moved through it. At the meadow's center, a flat outcropping of granite still held the day's warmth. They walked to the stone without discussion and lay down side by side. The rock radiated heat into their bodies. Above them, the sky was deepening from blue to violet, and the first stars were beginning to show themselves. Bodie's breathing slowed beside him. Joey's did the same. Their ribs rose and fell in rhythm, like breath was something they were sharing. The meadow was full of small sounds, grass moving, insects tuning their evening songs. Somewhere in the pines an owl called, low and questioning. Another answered from farther away. Joey's ears tracked the sounds, but he didn't lift his head. He was learning to listen without needing to act, to hear the world without immediately needing to do something about it. The stars multiplied, first dozens, then hundreds, then more than either dog could count, if dogs could count stars. The Milky Way stretched across the darkness like a river, like a path made of light. Body thought of the old man not in words, because dogs don't think think in words, but in feeling and image and scent. He thought of the weight of the old man's hand on his head, the sound of his voice saying good boy in that particular way. He had quiet and certain the smell of coffee in the morning, wool in the evening, the particular humanness that meant home and safety and love. The missing was there, as it had been since yesterday morning, but it was different now, less like panic and more like a weight he could carry. The old man was somewhere, they were somewhere, and he trusted that the space between those two somewheres was getting smaller with each hour that they walked. Beside him, Joey sighed, a long, slow release of breath that seemed to come from his belly rather than his chest. His eyes were half closed, watching the stars without urgency. The temperature dropped. Their bodies pressed closer together. They were tired and sore and hungry, but they were also here, in this meadow, under these stars, breathing this cool mountain air. The wind moved through the pines with a sound like distant water. The grass whispered and settled. The owl called again, and this time neither dog's ears twitched. Sleep came, the way the stars had come, gradually, then all at once. First Joey's eyes closed, his body going soft against Body's flank. Then Body's breathing deepened, the old shepherd mix finally surrendering to rest. The stars wheeled overhead in their ancient patterns. The earth turned beneath them, patient and unhurried. And two dogs, lost but not alone, slept. Through the deepest part of the night they slept and dreamed of simple things. The feeling of paws on solid ground, a road that would lead them steadily downward, back toward the world of people, and the particular sound of one old man's voice calling their names. But for now there was only darkness, stars and breath. Dawn came softly, the frost on the meadow grass turning silver, then gold, then disappearing altogether as the sun cleared the ridge. Joey woke first, as he always did, and waited. Body stirred. A few minutes later, blinking against the brightness. They stood slowly, stiff from the cold night, and shook themselves. The logging road stretched away, downhill, clear and obvious in the morning light. They began walking. There was no hurry in their pace now. No panic, no frantic searching, just movement, Steady, deliberate. Together the road descended through pine forest that smelled of resin and earth. Their paws made soft sounds against the dirt. Their breath came easily. By mid morning they heard the first engine, distant but unmistakable, the sound of a truck on pavement. The road they were following joined a wider gravel road, and that road showed fresh tire tracks. An hour later they reached the pavement. They stood at the edge of the asphalt, looking both ways. To the left the road curved up and away to the right. It descended toward the valley. Joey looked at Body. Body turned right. They walked on the shoulder, single file, Bodie leading. Now the sun was warm on their backs. Cars passed occasionally, not many, but enough. A few slowed, as if the drivers were considering stopping, but the dogs kept walking with such clear purpose that no one did. The road wound down through foothills, past meadows and small ranches. They passed a mailbox, then another. Gravel driveways leading to houses set back from the road. The smell of wood smoke, the sound of a rooster crowing. And then around a curve they saw the truck. It was parked in a small pullout where the road widened, nose pointed uphill as if ready to climb back into the mountains. The old man sat on the tailgate, his thermos beside him, his phone in his hands. Two other people stood nearby, a ranger in uniform and a woman with a search dog on a lead. Body stopped walking. Joey stopped beside him. The old man looked up. For a moment no one moved. The old man's face did. Something crumpled and opened at the same time, like he was breaking and mending in the same breath. He set the phone down. Carefully he stood. He didn't call out, he didn't run. He simply fell to his knees and opened his arms and the boys ran to him, body pressing his head against the old man's chest, Joey leaning into his leg. The old man's hands came down, one on each dog, and he made a sound that wasn't quite words. There you are, he finally whispered. There you are. They stayed like that while the ranger smiled and the woman with the search dog gave a small cheer. The old man's hands moved over their bodies, checking for injuries, feeling the realness of them. His face was wet when he kissed each of them on the snout, and when he spoke again, his voice was rough. Good boys. Such good boys. He opened the truck's back door and the dogs jumped in, settling onto their familiar blanket. The old man gave his thanks to the people who had helped him, his voice thick with emotion. Then he climbed into the driver's seat and just sat there for a moment, looking at the dogs in the rearview mirror. The drive home was quiet. No radio, no talking, just the sound of the engine and the road beneath them. Bodhi and Joey lay close together in the back, their bodies pressed into the familiar contours of the seat, swaying gently with the truck's movement through the window. The mountains receded behind them. The valley opened ahead. The sun moved across the sky the way it always did, marking the hours without judgment or hurry. They had been lost. They had found their way, and now they were going home. The old man's hand reached back to rest on body's head, just to be sure he was real. Outside, the world continued. Mountains and valleys, rivers and roads, all of it connected in ways too large to see but impossible to miss once you learn to notice. Two dogs breathing, one hand steady and warm. The long drive home. Good night.