Pillow Forts & Tree Houses (Encore)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Nothing Much Happens: Pillow Forts & Tree Houses (Encore)"

Release Date: March 6, 2025 | Host: Wellness Loud

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Introduction

In this encore episode of "Nothing Much Happens: Bedtime Stories to Help You Sleep," host Kathryn Nicolai introduces listeners to the soothing narrative of "Pillow Forts & Tree Houses." This episode, crafted to provide a calm and restful experience, delves into the nostalgic world of childhood imagination and the simple joys of creating personal hideaways.

Host's Opening Remarks

Kathryn Nicolai sets the stage by sharing her background and the philosophy behind the podcast:

"I was a full-time yoga teacher for over 20 years and I know the power of intentional breathing. [...] Moon Bird is a handheld breathing device... it's the perfect companion to your bedtime ritual."
(00:01)

She emphasizes the importance of intentional breathing in achieving a peaceful sleep and introduces supportive tools to enhance the bedtime experience.

The Science Behind Bedtime Stories

Audio engineer Bob Wittersheim provides a brief explanation of how bedtime stories aid in relaxation:

"Your mind needs a place to rest, and without one, it's apt to race and wander and keep you up all night."
(03:09)

He elaborates on how focusing on a story shifts brain activity from a restless state to one conducive to sleep, ensuring listeners understand the purpose behind the storytelling approach.

"Pillow Forts & Tree Houses" Story Overview

Bob Wittersheim narrates the heartwarming tale of childhood adventures in building forts and dreaming of treehouses. The story is delivered in two parts, with the second telling being slower to facilitate deeper relaxation.

Childhood Aspirations

The narrative begins with the excitement of constructing forts with friends, highlighting the imaginative designs of their dream treehouses:

"So our treehouse would have retractable stairs to keep out siblings who might try to take over the place, as well as maybe bears. We were kids. It made sense at the time."
(06:29)

This segment captures the essence of childhood creativity and the desire to create exclusive sanctuaries.

Challenges and Adaptations

As the story progresses, the children face logistical challenges that prevent their grand plans from materializing. They adapt by building ice palaces from snow and later transitioning to blanket forts during rainy days:

"When the walls got to their third or fourth layer of blocks, we realized we'd forgotten to leave a space for the door and had fun kicking one out."
(13:44)

These moments illustrate resilience and the ability to find joy in the process despite setbacks.

Personal Reflection

The narrator reflects on discovering a real treehouse as a teenager, bridging past and present:

"So tree houses were real. Someone had made this one and played here, and though I couldn't climb up to see it myself, I bet there was... a toy or a book or a box of treasures."
(16:24)

This reflection underscores the lasting impact of childhood experiences on one’s appreciation for simple pleasures.

Creating a Personal Hideaway

In adulthood, the narrator revisits the concept of making a personal hideaway by building a pillow fort, finding comfort and joy in the act:

"Was I too old to make a pillow fort? It turned out I was not. I chuckled to myself as I took the cushions off the couch and spread a tartan blanket over the living room rug."
(21:38)

This segment emphasizes self-care and the importance of creating personal spaces for relaxation.

Themes and Insights

1. Imagination and Creativity: The story highlights how imagination drives children to create intricate playspaces, fostering creativity and problem-solving skills.

2. Resilience in the Face of Challenges: The children's ability to adapt their plans when faced with obstacles teaches the value of flexibility and perseverance.

3. Nostalgia and Reflection: Revisiting childhood memories as an adult serves as a reminder of the enduring joy found in simple activities and the importance of maintaining a childlike sense of wonder.

4. Self-Care and Personal Space: Building a pillow fort as an adult symbolizes the need for personal retreats to unwind and reconnect with oneself amidst the busyness of life.

Conclusion

"Pillow Forts & Tree Houses" serves as a gentle reminder of the significance of imagination, adaptability, and self-care. By revisiting the comforting rituals of childhood, the episode encourages listeners to find solace and peace in their own personal hideaways, ultimately fostering a serene mindset conducive to restful sleep.

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Note: This summary excludes promotional segments and focuses solely on the episode's content to provide a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened.

Transcript

[Kathryn Nicolai]

I was a full time yoga teacher for over 20 years and I know the power of intentional breathing. It's why our two deep breaths have been part of our bedtime routine since episode one. And that's why I want to introduce you to Moon Bird. Moon Bird is a handheld breathing device designed to comfortably fit in the palm of your hand, which may help people living with stress, anxiety, insomnia, autism, ADHD or burnout. When you shake it, it will start inflating and deflating, so in your hand it will feel like you're holding a little bird that is breathing in and out. The only thing you need to do is breathe along with it. When Moonbird inflates, you breathe in. When Moonbird deflates, you breathe out. Simple, intuitive, and takes all the effort and thinking out of your breathing exercises. It's the perfect companion to your bedtime ritual. Or use it when you're meditating, when you're stuck in traffic, anytime you need an assist in feeling calm and focused.

[Bob Wittersheim]

Listen.

[Kathryn Nicolai]

I know how to breathe to feel better, but still I use Moon Bird because when my mind is racing or wandering, I need a little guidance and it makes my deep breathing more effective. So when you wake in the middle of the night, don't reach for your phone unless it's to restart your bedtime story. That's fine. Reach for Moonbird. Visit Moonbird Life nothingmuch happens. To save 20%, we've got it linked in our show notes. 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. We are bringing you an encore episode tonight. Meaning that this story originally aired at some point in the past. It could have been recorded with different equipment in a different location. And since I'm a person and not a computer, I sometimes sound just slightly different. But the stories are always soothing and family friendly, and our wishes for you are always deep rest and sweet dreams.

[Bob Wittersheim]

Now let me say something about how this works. Your mind needs a place to rest, and without one, it's apt to race and wander and keep you up all night. The story I'm about to tell you is a landing spot. Let your attention linger on the sound of my voice and the soothing details of the story. Doing so will actually shift your brain activity from default mode to task positive mode, which just means you'll be able to sleep. I'll tell the story twice and I'll go a little slower the second time through. If you wake in the middle of the night, turn your thoughts right back to whatever you can remember about the story or even just the details of a pleasant memory and you will drop right back off. Our story tonight is called Pillow Forts and Tree Houses and it's a story about a rainy afternoon tucked into a hideaway. It's also about the big ideas of children, a bowl of pretzels and apple slices, and remembering that you are never too old to enjoy a fort.

[Kathryn Nicolai]

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[Unknown]

I care about your sleep. It is always my first thought and priority in making this show. And sometimes you need extra help. Sometimes, even when your sleep hygiene is top tier, sleep doesn't come. Some nights you might struggle to fall asleep or wake after a few hours and toss and turn. I get it when perimenopause hit me like a wrecking ball. It through my sleep cycles so far off course that I felt like a different person and sleep breakthrough drink from Bioptimizers has really helped. I fall asleep when I want to and I sleep through the night without that 3am panic wake up that had been haunting me. When I wake in the morning I feel good, not groggy. I'm rested, my days are better. Bioptimizers has flexible dosing which I really like. My wife needs just a little bit and I take a little more. And for folks looking for an option without melatonin, this Is it ready to transform your sleep and wake up feeling refreshed? Visit bioptimizers.com nothingmuch and use code nothingmuch for 10% off any order. Don't settle for another restless night, my friends. Try Sleep Breakthrough Drink risk free with Bioptimizer's 365 day money back guarantee. And this is all in our show notes. If you forget, visit bioptimizers.com nothingmuch and use code nothingmuch for 10% off any order.

[Bob Wittersheim]

Okay, it's time. Put down whatever you've been looking at and switch off the light. Slide down deep into your sheets.

[Unknown]

And.

[Bob Wittersheim]

Make your body as comfortable as it can be. There's nothing you need to stay on top of. No one is waiting and you have done enough for today. You're safe. Take a slow breath in through your nose and let it out with a sigh. Nice do one more in and out. Good Pillow Forts and Tree Houses When I was a kid playing with my friends, it seemed like our constant ambition to build a fort, to make a clubhouse, somehow to construct a space for ourselves that could only be permeated by grown ups when snacks were handed through a flap in the blankets. The best version of this dream we could imagine was a treehouse, and I remember sketching out plans with the stub of a pencil in a spiral bound notebook with most of the pages ripped out. As long as you're dreaming, you may as well dream big. So our treehouse would have retractable stairs to keep out siblings who might try to take over the place, as well as maybe bears. We were kids. It made sense at the time. We'd have a fridge stocked with drinks and snacks. Where would we plug it in? Maybe a knot in the tree? Maybe we could figure out how to turn SAP into electricity. Yeah, I'd make a note to invent that later. We'd have binoculars for spotting friends in their trees a few yards away, a slide or better yet, a zip line to carry us back down, and we'd hold our meetings up there. About what? You know, nine year old stuff. Very important. You wouldn't understand. We never achieved our ambition of a treehouse. The logistics quickly overwhelmed us, and when our friends who claimed to have a cousin in the country who had one, we looked at them with a good deal of skepticism. Maybe tree houses were only in movies or adventure stories. Still, we kept attempting to make forts wherever we could. With school canceled on one sunny snow day, we met up at the end of the block where there was an empty lot full of Knee high snow. It was late winter and the deep chill was giving over to slightly less frigid temps, so the snow packed together nicely and we had a genius idea to shovel it into milk crates.

[Unknown]

The.

[Bob Wittersheim]

Plastic kind with faded writing on the sides. All garages have them, though they aren't acquired in any way that I know. They just appear in a corner or on a shelf and get filled with battered softballs or swim goggles we found when they were packed with heavy snow. They turned out perfect blocks to build with. We shoveled a flat space and started to lay them, first a foundation and then rising walls. When the walls got to their third or fourth layer of blocks, we realized we'd forgotten to leave a space for the door and had fun kicking one out. Also, a ceiling stymied us and as we started to make plans to swipe tarps from our sheds and basements, we got hungry and all trudged to the nearest of our houses to be fed soup and sandwiches while our snow pants dripped dry by the back door. Overnight the snow turned to rain.

[Unknown]

And.

[Bob Wittersheim]

By morning our ice palace was a lake with a few small square icebergs floating in it. I'm sure we hadn't given up, just changed tactics again. After all, what's better on a rainy day than a blanket fort? I'm sure we'd regrouped in someone's basement or living room and stacked couch cushions and bed pillows into a frame.

[Unknown]

And.

[Bob Wittersheim]

Draped blankets and coverlets over the whole thing. We'd probably had enough room to set out a board game and huddle around it, to roll the dice and mark down on the tiny pads of paper. If we thought it had been Professor Plum in the conservatory with a lead pipe or Mrs. Peacock in the billiard room with the candlestick. Years later When I was a teenager, in the last year of high school, I'd been on a hike through the woods in the back acres of my grandparents farm and found a tree with flat wooden rungs nailed into the trunk like a ladder. I'd looked up and seen a little house, a platform balancing on a broad branch with a few walls of mismatched lumber nailed together and a small square window cut out. The wood was bleached by the sun, and when I reached up to test the strength of one of the rungs, it came apart in my hand. So treehouses were real. Someone had made this one and played here, and though I couldn't climb up to see it myself, I bet there was, in a corner, under a pile of dried old leaves, a toy or a book or a box of treasures. Even now I'm still looking for those little places to tuck into. Maybe less a clubhouse and more a nest. Today was a day like the one that had turned our ice house into slush, rain coming down over the crunchy drifts of snow that were slowly shrinking. Water ran off the roof, drumming in the gutters and rushing in rivulets down the sidewalk and into the storm drains. I'd wanted to get out for a walk, but it would be a chilly, muddy mess and so I'd reframed my thoughts a bit. If I couldn't go out, could I make staying in even more tempting? Was I too old to make a pillow fort? It turned out I was not. I chuckled to myself as I took the cushions off the couch and spread a tartan blanket over the living room rug. It took a few tries and I had fun along the way, but soon I had a little structure with cushions as walls. I got creative and wedged a broom between two chairs so it stood upright. Through the hole at the end of the broomstick, I threaded a strand of dental floss, which is sturdy stuff, by the way, when you need to hang something heavy. Get thee to the medicine cabinet.

[Unknown]

And.

[Bob Wittersheim]

Stretched it from the broom to a nail that usually held a painting behind the couch. Then I crossed my fingers, flung a top sheet over the floss. It made a draping cover a tent to my little nest. I took the comforter from my bed and crawled inside with it, added more pillows and laid back and looked up at the tented ceiling. I let out a slow sigh. I felt a little giddy, so glad now to not be going out. I could stay in here all afternoon. But first, snacks. I wriggled back out and padded to the kitchen where the rain was thrumming against the window over the sink. The snow was shrinking fast. At this rate we'd wake up tomorrow to bare lawns on clear roofs. My neighbor still had a few reindeer and a light up snowman in his yard and I had a feeling this weekend would be the one that saw a lot of us taking down our decorations and twinkle lights. I made myself a tray of treats. Apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon, a glass of grapefruit soda, and a bowl of those little peanut butter filled pretzels. I slid my tray into my hideaway along with my book. I could watch movies, listen to music, read and nap, or just watch the light change through the walls of my fort. We would come out of hibernation soon, but not quite yet. Pillow forts and tree houses. When I was a kid playing with my friends, it seemed like our constant ambition to build a fort, to make a clubhouse, somehow to create a space for ourselves that could only be permeated by grown ups when snacks were handed through a flap in the blankets. The best version of this dream we could imagine was a tree house. And I remember sketching out plans with the stub of a pencil in a spiral bound notebook with most of the pages ripped out. As long as you're dreaming, you may as well dream big. So our treehouse would have retractable stairs to keep out siblings who might try to take over the place, as well as, um, maybe bears. We were kids. It made sense at the time. We'd have a fridge stocked with drinks and snacks. Where would we place, plug it in? Um, maybe a knot in the tree? Maybe we could figure out how to turn SAP into electricity. Yeah, I'd make a note to invent that later. We'd have binoculars for spotting friends in their trees a few yards away.

[Unknown]

A.

[Bob Wittersheim]

Slide or better yet, a zipline to carry us back down. And we'd hold our meetings up there. About what? You know, nine year old stuff, very important. You wouldn't understand. We never achieved our ambition of a treehouse. The logistics quickly overwhelmed us. And when our friends who claimed to have a cousin in the country who had one, we looked at them with a good deal of skepticism. Maybe tree houses were only in movies or adventure stories. Still, we kept attempting to make forts whenever we could. The school canceled on one sunny snow day. We met up at the end of the block where there was an empty lot full of knee high snow. It was late winter and the deep chill was giving over to slightly less frigid temps, so the snow packed together nicely. We had a genius idea to shovel it into milk crates. The plastic kind with faded writing on the sides. All garages have them, though they aren't acquired in any way that I know. They just appear in a corner or on a shelf and get filled with battered softballs or swim goggles we found when they were packed with the heavy snow, they turned out perfect blocks to build with. We shoveled a flat space and started to lay them. First a foundation and then rising walls. When the walls got to their third or fourth layer of blocks, we realized we'd forgotten to leave a space for a door and had fun kicking one out. Also, a ceiling stymied us, and as we started to make plans to swipe tarps from our sheds and basement, we got hungry and all trudged to the nearest of our houses to be fed soup and sandwiches while our snow pants dripped dry by the back door. Overnight the snow turned to rain.

[Unknown]

And.

[Bob Wittersheim]

By morning our ice palace was a lake with a few small square icebergs floating in it. I'm sure we hadn't just given up, we changed tactics again. After all, what's better on a rainy day than a blanket for it? I'm sure we'd regrouped in someone's basement or living room and stacked couch cushions and bed pillows into a frame.

[Unknown]

And.

[Bob Wittersheim]

Draped blankets and coverlets over the whole thing. We'd probably had enough room to set out a board game and huddle around it, to roll the dice and mark down on the tiny pads of paper if we thought it had been Professor Plumb in the conservatory with the lead pipe or Mrs. Peacock in the billiard room with the candlestick. Years later When I was a teenager in the last year of high school, I'd been on a hike through the woods in the back acres of my grandparents farm and found a tree with flat wooden rungs nailed into the trunk like a ladder. I looked up and seen a little house, a platform balancing on a broad branch with a few walls of mismatched lumber nailed together and a small square window cut. The wood was bleached by the sun, and when I reached up to test the strength of one of the rungs, it came apart in my hand. So tree houses were real. Someone had made this one and played here, and though I couldn't climb up to see it myself, I bet there was, in a corner, under a pile of dried old leaves, a toy or a book or a box of treasures. Even now I'm still looking for those little places to tuck into, maybe less a clubhouse and more a nest. Today was a day like the one that had turned our ice house into slush, rain coming down over the crunchy drifts of snow that were slowly shrinking. Water ran off the roof, drumming in the gutters and rushing in rivulets down the sidewalk and into the storm drains. I'd wanted to get out for a walk, but it would be a chilly, muddy mess, and so I'd reframed my thoughts a bit. If I couldn't go out, could I make staying in even more tempting? Was I too old to make a pillow for? Turned out I was not. I chuckled to myself as I took the cushions off the couch and spread a tartan blanket over the living room rug. It took a few tries and I had fun along the way, but soon I had a little structure with cushions as walls. I got creative and wedged a broom between two chairs so it stood upright. Through the hole at the end of the broomstick I threaded a strand of dental floss, which is sturdy stuff, by the way, when you need to hang something heavy. Get thee to the medicine cabinet.

[Unknown]

And.

[Bob Wittersheim]

I stretched it from the broom.

[Unknown]

To.

[Bob Wittersheim]

A nail that usually held a painting behind the couch. Then I crossed my fingers, flung a top sheet over the floss. It made a draping cover a tent to my little nest. I took the comforter from my bed and crawled inside with it, added more pillows and laid back and looked up at the tented ceiling. I let out a slow sigh. I felt a little giddy, so glad now to not be going out. I could stay in here all afternoon. But first snacks. I wriggled back out and padded to the kitchen where the rain was thrumming against the window over the sink. The snow was shrinking fast. At this rate we'd wake up tomorrow to bare lawns on clear roofs. My neighbor still had a few reindeer and a light up snowman in his yard and I had a feeling this weekend would be the one that saw a lot of us taking down our decorations and twinkle lights. I made myself a tray of treats, apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon, a glass of grapefruit soda, and a bowl of those little peanut butter filled pretzels. I slid my tray into my hideaway along with my book. I could watch movies, listen to music, read and nap, or just watch the light change through the walls of my fort. We would come out of hibernation soon, but not quite yet. Sweet dreams.