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Hi, I'm Katherine Nicolai, and if you're looking for something gentle to listen to that isn't news or true crime or self-improvement, I made this for you.
Stories from the Village of Nothing Much is like easy listening, but for fiction.
Cozy, warm, calm stories about ordinary moments that feel a little magical.
They're grounding, soothing and quietly uplifting without being cheesy, relaxing without putting you to sleep, and just dreamy enough to remind you that there's still sweetness in everyday life.
Perfect for your commute, while you're tidying up, or when you want a little escape that feels simple and good.
Search for Stories from the Village of Nothing Much wherever you listen.
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Welcome to a special longer episode of Bedtime Stories for Everyone. in which slightly more happens.
You feel good, and then you fall asleep.
I'm Catherine Nicolai.
I write and read all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens.
Audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. we give to a different charity each week.
And this week, we are giving to a well-fed world.
A well-fed world is one in which all people have an abundance of nourishing plant-based foods that maximize health for people, animals and the planet.
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Now, just as with our regular episodes, these stories are simply a soft place to occupy your mind and keep it steady so that you can drift off.
All you need to do in order for this to be effective is to listen.
I'll tell the stories twice. and I'll go a little slower the second time through.
If you wake later in the night, don't hesitate to just start them over.
Our stories tonight have us packing up the car and heading out of town to the cottage.
They are stories about lounge chairs and lazy days, sailboats and swimsuits and listening to the waves as they rock you to sleep.
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So slide down into your sheets and get as comfortable as you can.
There's nothing left to do, no plans to stay on top of.
Just rest.
Take a deep breath in through your nose. and sigh through your mouth.
Again, breathe in and let it out.
Good.
Opening the cottage.
It is perhaps a distinction that not everyone will agree with.
But as far as I am concerned, cabins are in the woods, and cottages are by the water.
A cabin might live in a shady glade.
Tall pines or ancient oaks standing close by, with branches curling overhead.
It might have dark paneled walls and a wood-burning stove for warming feet and thick socks.
It might be the best place to be on a foggy autumn morning or at the first snow of the year, with a cup in hand and eyes on the slowly blanketing landscape.
But a cottage sits on the edge of a river, or by a broad lake.
Its walls are painted a faded shade of yellow or white.
It has weeping willows for neighbors, their buds the first to go green in the early spring.
It is the best place to be on the cusp of warm months, with a glass of iced tea in the afternoon and eyes always on the moving water.
And so we were on our way to open the cottage car was packed with a few days' worth of clothes good for cleaning and walking in, paper grocery, sacks of provisions, a couple of dogs and our giddy selves.
The drive was familiar, routes we'd been taking for years.
Here's the shop we sometimes stop at for iced drinks and sweet corn in the late summer.
Here's the little town with one stoplight, and the old depot overgrown with ivy and wisteria.
Turn on the state road, circle past the house with shrubs cut to look like animals and train cars.
And keep going, just a bit longer, till the air starts to smell different.
Finally, lean forward in your seat, squint a bit and catch sight of the front porch and familiar trees of the cottage.
It was an old place built at the beginning of the last century, with white clabbered siding and a front full of windows.
We pulled up, dogs dancing in our laps.
They knew where we were and were as excited as we were.
When we opened the doors, they jumped down and started a determined, sniffing investigation of every blade of grass.
They were checking the guestbook, as it were, seeing who exactly had passed through, since we'd closed up in the fall.
We let them sniff and did our own bit of inventory, checking for loose screens in the windows.
We noticed a few branches that had fallen on the roof during a storm and the buds of lilacs on the bush.
We stepped up onto the front porch and the dogs rushed to follow us in their whole, bodies wagging now and noses pressed up against the crack under the door.
I found the key on my ring, the one with a tiny red heart daubed on in nail polish, and wiggled it into the lock.
I pushed the door open, and the dog shot through the place, running from room to room.
And we started to pull back curtains, roll up blinds, and open windows.
Under the closed-up musty smell, I could already detect the scent that was so deeply tied into this place.
It was like old wood warmed in the sun.
Like old books and the cases they've lived in for years, and with it the smell of fresh water and hundreds of breakfasts cooked late on Saturday mornings.
It was simply the best smell in the world.
Once the car was unpacked and the dogs had worn themselves out with sniffing and found spots to lay in the sun of the front porch.
We rolled up our sleeves and started to work our way through the little house.
We put fresh sheets on the bed and swept the floors.
We stocked up the kitchen cupboards and filled the fridge.
We put clean towels in the bathroom and wiped the dust from the surfaces.
We frowned at the fuse box and water heater and flip switches until we'd figured it out.
We should write down how we did that, so we have it for next year, I said.
Mm-hmm.
We both knew we wouldn't.
It was part of the tradition.
We strung the clothesline up in the backyard, knowing soon it would hold exclusively beach towels and swimsuits.
We waved at neighbors, called out hellos and how are yous.
There was more to do, but we'd done all we wanted for the day.
So we stood shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen and fixed some sandwiches, carried them out to the water.
We walked to the edge of the dock and sat down with our legs dangling over toes, a few inches away from the still chilly flowing river.
We'd been saving this moment.
And we both knew it.
Is it this way for everyone?
That water calls you like home?
That you get antsy and edgy when you're too long away from it and that as soon as you're back, you feel yourself restored.
Is it because I grew up here?
Because I'd slept on the front porch swing a hundred times as a kid and jumped off this dock in every year of my life since I could walk.
Or does water pull everyone the same?
If I'd grown up in a desert, walked dunes of dry sand and celebrated the days of my life in the rare shade of palms, would I feel called by the arid heat Beside me?
An arm was raised and a finger pointed down the length of the river at a long dash of steel in the distance.
Ship.
Ship, I said back.
We'd see a hundred before the summer was over, but it never stopped being exciting.
Some we knew well. having seen them for years and having looked them up in the ship's book.
We knew how long they were, what they carried and could see just by looking at them if they were full or empty of cargo.
This one looked brand new, fresh paint and sleek lines.
I looked forward to hearing the ship's horns in the night, to seeing their lighted bows and sterns slipping through the black water.
There was no sleep like cottage sleep, and no waking like cottage mornings.
We heard the paws of the dogs behind us. and they crept down the dock to sit beside us.
A furry head came to rest on my thigh and I slipped my hand over her shaggy ear and stroked the spot between her eyes.
We were all quiet together just looking out at the slow-moving ship, the wake building at her bow and the water birds overhead.
I was sure that cabins held their own joys, but this was a cottage.
And it was the best place to be for the summer.
All the windows were open.
Not that the little cottage had that many to begin with.
I mean, there were plenty of windows for a house its size. because its size was small and simple.
It was old and cozy and mostly white inside and out.
It couldn't have been built today.
The land would have cost so much that the purchaser would have felt compelled to build a bulking giant of a house in the place that the cottage stood.
But it had been built at a time when it seemed like there would never not be enough shoreline for the people who wanted it.
The drive up went through the woods, along curving, rutted dirt roads edged with tall pines and overhanging maples.
You had to know where you were going to get there, and I had known since I was a child.
We came in the summers and the autumns, but rarely in cold weather.
The house had a huge fireplace that opened into the kitchen on one side and the living room on the other, and another in the master bedroom, but no other heating.
That always seems fun as a child.
To camp in front of the fire under piles of blankets, goofing off and drinking cups of cocoa.
All the rules are broken.
And breaking rules makes children insanely happy.
It's less fun as an adult.
You mostly just get cold.
So I, like mine before me, came in the summers and the autumns.
Today, a bright summer day.
All the windows were open.
And I stood in the neat little kitchen with a cup of coffee in my hands and looked out at the water, our cottage with its front door, hidden in the woods and lifted up on a bluff.
Looked out from every possible room to the water.
It was about 200 steps down, an old wooden staircase to the beach.
The staircase had, in three places along the descent, benches on jutting platforms so the climber could have a sit and just look out.
Why is it that our attention is so drawn completely to water?
A lake, large or small, a river, a trickling stream in the woods and, of course, seas and oceans, are irresistible to our senses.
We gape.
We forget to think.
Some ancient program in our brains begins to run, and happily we comply.
Look at the water, it says.
Yes, good idea, we say.
So I was looking, scraping the last of my oats from the bowl and taking deep breaths of the water smell rolling in through the window.
I'd made a bowl of oats so overloaded with bananas and berries, cacao nibs cinnamon walnuts, cashew butter, dates and jam that I'd barely been able to keep it from tumbling out each time I dipped my spoon back in.
Now that it was gone, I felt a bit proud that I'd managed to eat it all and have another cup of coffee to boot.
I wiped down the old wooden table and got to thinking about bread.
The day before, I'd picked strawberries for hours.
I went by myself and picked basket after basket, while listening to an old audiobook, one that I loved and had heard many times before.
For me, there are few things more pleasant than combining the steady movement of my hands with a story to listen to.
And so I had whiled away the afternoon and now I had a lot of strawberries and that made me think of jam and that made me think of bread.
I started the bread first, as it would need to rise at least once, maybe twice, if I could wait that long.
I began pulling my ingredients together and taking bowls and measuring cups from the open shelves.
I used to read a recipe and start mixing before I had all the ingredients and tools out.
Soon I'd be digging through a drawer looking for something, with hands covered with flour or dough, my spoon dripping on the floor.
I've gotten older.
I've learned.
I took everything out and laid things in a logical order.
I turned on my book.
It was blessedly long.
So much still had to happen before it would all come right in the end and started to wake up my yeast.
Yeast and water, then flour and salt.
I kneaded and looked out at the water.
I added a bit of olive oil to a bowl and turned the dough over in it, laid a clean towel on it and set it in the sunny corner of the counter.
Now, I said, strawberries.
I'd washed them all the night before, so now I hulled them, cut them in half and ate about one in every ten I prepared.
I set a pot on the stove and added lemon juice, zest, and sugar and turned on the heat.
After a bit, I added my strawberries.
I cooked them down and tested the hot jam on a cold plate from the fridge.
When I could draw a line through it with my finger, and the line held, it was done.
I don't have the patience for canning, so this jam would all have to be eaten within a week or so, and I'd made almost a dozen jars, so I'd have to drive it around to neighbors later, leaving a jar or two on doorsteps or in mailboxes.
My bread was doming over the edge of its bowl and I scattered some flour on my work surface, punched it down and tipped it out.
More kneading, more rising.
I cleaned up, looked at the water, paused my book, and went outside.
When you step out onto a really lovely summer day, you think for a moment, well, that's it.
I'm never going inside again.
How is anyone ever inside?
So I thought that and looked at the water.
I pottered around in my garden, pulled some things, talked to the tomato plants and stuck some mint leaves in my pocket.
I took the stairs down to the water and stepped out into the sand.
You can walk a long way in either direction on this beach, and only see more beach.
The houses are all up high on the hill.
And since everyone wants to walk the beach without having anyone fuss at them, we've all made a tacit agreement to simply not be jerks and let people walk as they will.
It works out just fine.
So I walked for a while, let the water still cold from the night wash over my ankles and poked at shells with my toes.
On the way back up the stairs, an hour or so later, I remembered that I was making bread.
Oh, right, I said.
Bread.
Bread.
It was a bit of a beast and I knocked the air out of it and rolled it into a big round loaf, set it on a baking tray and pushed it into the oven.
I would need some iced tea and my book next.
So I boiled a kettle and stepped into my room to fetch my book from beside my bed.
It was a different book than the one I'd been listening to.
There are different books for different times.
The book in my hand was perfect for reading outside and might, if done correctly, lead to napping.
The master bedroom was mine now. with its whitewashed wooden walls and fireplace.
It had a huge bed, spread with white linens and a very puffy comforter.
It naturally faced the water and had a small deck you could sit on with your coffee in the morning.
Back in the kitchen, I made tea and looked at my bread.
Almost.
Not quite yet.
I took an old wood tray from a cupboard and spread a tea towel over.
I laid out a jam jar and a spoon, a napkin, my book, and a glass filled with ice.
Remembering the mint leaves in my pocket, I tore them up and added them to the glass.
At last the bread was ready to come out.
It was huge and made me laugh just to look at it.
I thumped the bottom and was satisfied to hear its hollow sound.
I put it, along with a plate and a knife, on my tray, filled my tea glass, and was ready to go out.
I headed to the stone patio.
It had chaise lounges and tables, a fire pit, pots of jasmine and petunias, and was strung with fairy lights for the evening.
I set my tray on a table beside a lounger, kicked off my sandals and laid my book on the wide armrest.
I'd cut a slice of bread in a moment, lay jam thickly over it, and dig in.
But for now, I just looked out at the water.
I just listened to the waves, and the birds, and the insects.
I just sat and felt my own breath in my chest.
A day at the cottage.
The cottage was ready for summer.
We'd spent a few days cleaning with the windows open, and it felt fresh and welcoming again.
We put clean sheets on the beds and shook out the rugs in the backyard.
We dusted the bookshelves and the family photos in their frames.
The beach towels had all been freshly washed and were waiting in a neat stack in the closet for their first trip of the summer to the water's edge.
The key hanging inside the back door had been successfully wiggled into the lock on the shed and the lawnmower convinced to start up.
The smell of fresh-cut grass turned over dirt in the flowerbeds. made summer feel real.
And from time to time I'd stop and look out at the water, at the way the sunlight shimmered on the surface, and feel overwhelmed with contentment for the season and the place.
In the kitchen, I'd restocked the pantry shelves with jars of pickles for our sandwiches, jam for our toast and sauces for all the things we'd cook up on the grill.
Cottages tend to get filled up with hand-me-downs old dishes that don't match or have chips along the rim, threadbare blankets and lamps with wonky shades.
When they get replaced elsewhere, they show up at the cottage and they become precious objects again for a whole new reason.
Because they are a part of a beloved place and sweet memories.
As I cleaned the kitchen, I washed the giant platter that had served a thousand summer suppers.
The coffee cup that my father had always carried out to the water with him in the mornings.
And the tiny juice glasses my grandmother had sipped wine from as she sat on the front porch.
I filled the vases with wildflowers that grew in the ditch and replaced the burnt-out lightbulb that shone over the back steps.
And then we were done.
We were ready to settle into the business of enjoying the summer, the water, and the sun.
I've always loved the way that we that, as people of all ages, Recognize the importance of napping in the middle of the day in the summertime.
Whether it is on a blanket stretched out in the sun or with a hat tipped over your eyes in a lounge chair, or under a big umbrella in a hammock.
On any given summer day, the only logical thing to do is sleep.
And even people who struggle to sit still, who keep busy nearly all the time.
When they feel the warmth and smell the summer air, they start to look for a place to stretch out and catch some shut-eye.
I looked forward.
All those summer naps that lay ahead of me as I got ready to head to the water.
I made a giant glass of cold tea with mint leaves and a bit of sugar swirling around the ice cubes, and I got a few of those clean towels from the closet.
I laughed as I tucked them under my arm.
These towels were holding on by a literal thread.
I remembered wrapping up in them when I was a kid, tying the corners around my neck like a superhero's cape.
Running through the yard, my hair still wet from my latest cannonball into the water.
They were still here, and would probably still be here next year.
A neighbor had dropped off a bundle of magazines on the front steps.
We shared sometimes, passing them back and forth, until we'd read them all.
And I took a few with me, and my sunglasses. and made my way over to the water.
We had an old picnic table that was tilting slowly into the soft ground.
It wasn't bad enough that my glass of tea would spill, but I added it to my mental list for a fix-up.
I remembered seeing a stack of old bricks in the shed we could use to brace the legs.
Hand-me-downs. and fixer-uppers.
That was the cottage.
We put out a few lounge chairs the day before, and I dragged one into the shade of a tall beech tree.
As I struggled one-handed... to spread my towels over it.
I remembered the chairs we'd had when I was little.
There was one that folded flat though you had to have an engineering degree to set it back up again.
It was made of canvas.
And a wood frame.
And I thought of my father, flipping the fabric this way and that.
Sure, he had it this time.
Been trying to sit, and the whole thing collapsing.
Then there were the beach chairs my mother and I tried to lay on.
They were the kind that, folded up like a trifold wallet and made of rubbery plastic tubes that your skin would get pinched in, leave you with striped marks all over your body once you managed to stand up out of them.
The frames were aluminum that rusted almost instantly and buckled when you tried to flip onto your belly.
I could still remember the clicking sound, the hinges made as you lowered or lifted the headrest, trying to get comfortable.
I was almost certain, though, we still had all those chairs somewhere in the cottage.
Finally, I settled into my spot and found a flattish patch of grass to rest my drink.
I took a long, slow breath in and let it out.
My magazines could wait.
I wanted to watch the water.
There was a light breeze today and a few boats out, so the surface rippled and rose in soft waves.
I closed my eyes and listened.
I could hear water birds calling.
The far-off buzz of a lawnmower.
Water lapping against boat hulls and, high and softer than all of it, the light rustle of the breeze and the leaves.
I knew in a minute or two that first summer nap of the season would swallow me up.
I doze deeply happily, warm and content, and wake to find all the ice cubes in my tea melted and the magazines flapping in the breeze.
I held on to this moment for just a little longer, that sweet feeling of inevitable heavy sleep coming to restore me.
Opening the Cottage It is perhaps a distinction that not everyone will agree with.
But as far as I am concerned, cabins are in the woods, and cottages are by the water.
A cabin might live in a shady glade, tall pines or ancient oaks standing close by with branches curling overhead.
It might have dark paneled walls and a wood-burning stove for warming feet and thick socks.
It might be the best place to be on a foggy autumn morning or at the first snow of the year, with a cup in hand and eyes on the slowly blanketing landscape.
But a cottage sits on the edge of a river or by a broad lake.
Its walls are painted a faded shade of yellow or white.
It has weeping willows for neighbors. bare buds the first to go green in the early spring.
It is the best place to be on the cusp of warm months, with a glass of iced tea in the afternoon and eyes always on the moving water.
And so, we were on our way to open the cottage.
The car was packed with a few days' worth of clothes, good for cleaning and walking in.
Paper grocery sacks of provisions.
A couple of dogs. and our giddy selves.
The drive was familiar, routes we'd been taking for years.
Here's the shop we sometimes stop at for iced drinks and sweet corn in the late summer.
Here's the little town with one stoplight, and the old depot overgrown with ivy and wisteria.
Turn on the state road.
Circle past the house with shrubs cut to look like animals and train cars.
And keep going, just a bit longer, till the air starts to smell different.
Finally, lean forward in your seat, squint a bit and catch sight of the front porch and familiar trees of the cottage.
It was an old place built at the beginning of the last century, with white clabbered siding and a front full of windows.
We pulled up, dogs dancing in our laps.
They knew where we were and were as excited as we were.
When we opened the doors, they jumped down and started a determined, sniffing investigation of every blade of grass.
They were checking the guestbook, as it were, seeing who exactly had passed through, since we'd closed up in the fall.
We let them sniff and did our own bit of inventory. checking for loose screens in the windows.
We noticed a few branches that had fallen on the roof during a storm and the buds of lilac on the bush.
We stepped up onto the front porch and the dogs rushed to follow us in their whole, bodies wagging now and noses pressed up against the crack under the door.
I found the key on my ring, the one with a tiny red heart daubed on in nail polish, and wiggled it into the lock.
I pushed the door open, and the dog shot through the place, running from room to room.
And we started to pull back curtains, roll up blinds, and open windows.
Under the closed-up musty smell, I could already detect the scent that was so deeply tied into this place.
It was like old wood warmed in the sun, like old books and the cases they've lived in for years.
And with it was the smell of fresh water and hundreds of breakfasts cooked late on Saturday mornings.
It was simply the best smell in the world.
Once the car was unpacked and the dogs had worn themselves out with sniffing and found spots to lay in the sun of the front porch, we rolled up our sleeves and started to work our way through the little house.
We put fresh sheets on the bed and swept the floors.
We stocked up the kitchen cupboards and filled the fridge.
We put clean towels in the bathroom and wiped the dust from the surfaces.
We frowned at the fuse box and water heater and flip switches until we'd figured it out.
We should write down how we did that so we have it for next year, I said.
Mm-hmm.
We both knew we wouldn't.
It was part of the tradition.
We strung the clothesline up in the backyard, knowing soon it would hold exclusively beach towels and swimsuits.
We waved at neighbors, called out hellos and how are yous.
There was more to do, but we'd done all we wanted for the day.
So we stood shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen and fixed some sandwiches, carried them out to the water.
We walked to the edge of the dock and sat down, with our legs dangling over toes, a few inches from the still chilly flowing river.
We'd been saving this moment, and we both knew it.
Is it this way for everyone?
That water calls you like home?
That you get antsy and edgy when you're too long away from it and that as soon as you're back, you feel yourself restored.
Is it because I grew up here?
Because I'd slept on the front porch swing a hundred times as a kid and jumped off this dock in every year of my life since I could walk.
Or does water pull everyone the same?
If I'd grown up in a desert, walked dunes of dry sand and celebrated the days of my life in the rare shade of palms.
Would I feel called by the arid heat?
Beside me, an arm was raised and a finger pointed down the length of the river at a long dash of steel in the distance.
Ship.
Ship, I said back.
We'd see a hundred before the summer was over, but it never stopped being exciting.
Some we knew well. having seen them for years, and having looked them up in the ship's book.
We knew how long they were, what they carried and could see just by looking at them if they were full or empty of cargo.
This one looked brand new, fresh paint and sleek lines.
I looked forward to hearing the ship's horns in the night, to seeing their lighted bows and sterns slipping through the black water.
There was no sleep like cottage sleep, and no waking like cottage mornings.
We heard the paws of the dogs behind us, and they crept down the dock to sit beside us.
A furry head came to rest on my thigh and I slipped my hand over her shaggy ear and stroked the spot between her eyes.
We were all quiet together just looking out at the slow-moving ship, the wake building at her bow and the water birds overhead.
I was sure that cabins held their own joys.
But this was a cottage.
And it was the best place to be for the summer.
All the windows were open.
Not that the little cottage had that many to begin with.
I mean, there were plenty of windows for a house its size.
But its size was small and simple.
It was old and cozy and mostly white inside and out.
It couldn't have been built today.
The land would have cost so much that the purchaser would have felt compelled to build a bulking giant of a house in the place where the cottage stood.
But it had been built at a time when it seemed like there would never not be enough shoreline for the people who wanted it.
The drive up went through woods, along curving, rutted dirt roads edged with tall pines and overhanging maples.
You had to know where you were going to get there, and I had known since I was a child.
We came in the summers and the autumns, but rarely in cold weather.
The house had a huge fireplace that opened into the kitchen on one side and the living room on the other, and another in the master bedroom, but no other heating.
That always seems fun as a child.
To camp in front of the fire, under piles of blankets, goofing off and drinking cups of cocoa.
All the rules are broken.
And breaking rules makes children insanely happy.
It's less fun as an adult.
You mostly just get cold.
So I, like mine before me, came in the summers and the autumns.
Today, a bright summer day.
All the windows were open and I stood in the neat little kitchen with a cup of coffee in my hands and looked out at the water.
Our cottage, with its front door hidden in the woods and lifted up on a bluff, looked out from every possible room to the water.
It was about 200 steps down an old wooden staircase to the beach.
The staircase had, in three places along the descent, benches on jutting platforms so the climber could have a sit and just look out.
Why is it that our attention is so drawn completely to water?
A lake, large or small?
A river or trickling stream in the woods.
And, of course, seas and oceans are irresistible to our senses.
We gape.
We forget to think.
Some ancient program in our brains begins to run, and happily we comply.
Look at the water, it says.
Yes, good idea, we say.
So I was looking, scraping the last of my oats from the bowl and taking deep breaths of the water smell rolling in through the window.
I'd made a bowl of oats so overloaded with bananas and berries, cacao nibs cinnamon walnuts, cashew butter, dates and jam, but I'd barely been able to keep it from tumbling out each time I dipped my spoon back in.
Now that it was gone, I felt a bit proud that I'd managed to eat it all and have another cup of coffee to boot.
I wiped down the old wooden table and got to thinking about bread.
The day before, I'd pick strawberries for hours.
I went by myself and picked basket after basket, while listening to an old audiobook that I'd loved and heard many times before.
For me, there are few things more pleasant than combining the steady movement of my hands with a story to listen to.
And so I had whiled away the afternoon.
And now I had a lot of strawberries.
And that made me think of jam.
And that made me think of bread.
I started the bread first, as it would need to rise at least once, maybe twice, if I could wait that long.
I began pulling my ingredients together, taking bowls and measuring cups from the open shelves.
I used to read a recipe and start mixing before I had all the ingredients and tools out.
Soon I'd be digging through a drawer looking for something, with hands covered with flour or dough, my spoon dripping on the floor.
I've gotten older.
I've learned.
I took everything out and laid things in a logical order.
I turned on my book.
It was blessedly long.
So much still had to happen before it would all come right in the end.
And started to wake up my yeast. yeast and water, then flour and salt.
I kneaded and looked out at the water.
I added a bit of olive oil to a bowl and turned the dough over in it, laid a clean towel on it and set it in a sunny corner of the counter.
Now, I said, strawberries.
I'd washed them all the night before, so now I hulled them, cut them in half and ate about one in every ten I prepared.
I set a pot on the stove and added lemon juice, zest, sugar, turned down the heat.
After a bit, I added my strawberries.
I cooked them down and tested the hot jam on a cold plate from the fridge.
When I could draw a line through it with my finger, and the line held, it was done.
I don't have patience for canning. so this jam would all have to be eaten within a week or so.
And I'd made almost a dozen jars so I'd have to drive it around to neighbors later, leaving a jar or two on doorsteps or in mailboxes.
My bread was doming over the edge of its bowl And I scattered some flour on my work surface, punched it down and tipped it out.
More kneading, more rising.
I cleaned up, looked at the water, paused my book, and went outside.
When you step out onto a really lovely summer day, you think for a moment, well, that's it.
I'm never going inside again.
How is anyone ever inside?
So I thought that and looked at the water pottered around in my garden, pulled some things, talked to the tomato plants and stuck some mint leaves in my pocket.
I took the stairs down to the water and stepped out into the sand.
You can walk a long way in either direction on this beach, and only see more beach.
The houses are all high up on the hill and since everyone wants to walk the beach without having anyone fuss at them, we've all made a tacit agreement to simply not be jerks and let people walk as they will.
It works out just fine.
So I walked for a while.
Let the water, still very cold, from the night wash over my ankles and poked at shells with my toes.
On the way back up the stairs, an hour or so later, I remembered that I was making bread.
Oh, right, I said.
Bread.
It was a bit of a beast and I knocked the air out of it and rolled it into a big round loaf, set it on a baking tray and pushed it into the oven.
I would need some iced tea and my book next.
So I boiled a kettle and stepped into my room to fetch my book from beside my bed.
It was a different book than the one I'd been listening to.
There are different books for different times.
The book in my hand was perfect for reading outside, and might, if done correctly, lead to napping.
The master bedroom was mine now, with its whitewashed wooden walls and fireplace.
It had a huge bed, spread with white linens and a very puffy comforter.
It naturally faced the water and had a small deck you could sit on with your coffee in the morning.
Back in the kitchen, I made tea and looked at my bread.
Almost.
Not quite yet.
I took an old wood tray from a cupboard and spread a tea towel over it.
I laid out a jam jar and a spoon, a napkin, my book, and a glass filled with ice.
Remembering the mint leaves in my pocket, I tore them up and added them to the glass.
At last, the bread was ready to come out.
It was huge and made me laugh just to look at it.
I thumped the bottom and was satisfied to hear its hollow sound.
I put it, along with a plate and a knife on my tray, filled my tea glass and was ready to go back out.
I headed to the stone patio.
It had chaise lounges and tables.
A fire pit. pots of jasmine and petunias, and was strung with fairy lights for the evening.
I set my tray on a table beside a lounger, kicked off my sandals and laid my book on the wide armrest.
I'd cut a slice of bread in a moment, lay jam thickly over it, and dig in.
But for now, I just looked out at the water.
I just listened to the waves, and the birds, and the insects.
I just sat and felt my own breath in my chest.
A day at the cottage.
The cottage was ready for the summer.
We'd spent a few days cleaning with the windows open.
And it felt fresh and welcoming again.
We put clean sheets on the beds. and shook out the rugs in the backyard.
We dusted the bookshelves and the family photos in their frames.
The beach towels had all been freshly washed and were waiting in a neat stack in the closet for their first trip of the summer to the water's edge.
The key hanging inside the back door had been successfully wiggled into the lock on the shed and the lawnmower convinced to start up.
The smell of fresh cut grass and turned over dirt in the flower beds. made summer feel real.
And from time to time I'd stop and look out at the water, at the way the sunlight shimmered on the surface, and feel overwhelmed with contentment for the season and the place.
In the kitchen, I'd restocked the pantry with jars of pickles for our sandwiches.
Jam for our toast.
And sauces for all the things we'd cook on the grill.
Cottages tend to get filled up with hand-me-downs.
Old dishes that don't match or have chips along the rim.
Threadbare blankets and lamps with wonky shades.
When they get replaced elsewhere, they show up at the cottage and become precious objects again, for a whole new reason.
Because they are part of a beloved place and sweet memories.
As I cleaned the kitchen, I washed the giant platter that had served a thousand summer suppers, the coffee cup that my father had always carried out to the water with him in the morning and the tiny juice glasses my grandmother had sipped wine from as she sat on the front porch.
I filled the vases with wildflowers that grew in the ditch and replaced the burnt-out lightbulb that shone over the back steps.
And then we were done.
We were ready to settle into the business of enjoying the summer.
The water and the sun.
I've always loved the way we that is, people of all ages recognize the importance of napping in the middle of the day in the summertime.
Whether it is on a blanket stretched out in the sun or with a hat tipped over your eyes in a lounge chair, or under a big umbrella in a hammock.
At some point on any given summer day, the only logical thing to do is sleep.
And even people who struggle to sit still, who keep busy nearly all the time when they feel that warmth and smell the summer air.
I start to look for a place to stretch out and catch some shut-eye.
I looked forward to all those summer naps that lay ahead of me. as I got ready to head to the water.
I made a glass of cold tea with mint leaves and a bit of sugar swirling around the ice cubes.
I got a few of those clean towels from the closet.
I laughed as I tucked them under my arm.
These towels were holding on by a literal thread.
I remembered wrapping up in them when I was a kid, tying the corners around my neck like a superhero's cape and running through the yard.
My hair still wet from my latest cannonball into the water.
They were still here and would probably still be here next year.
A neighbor had dropped off a bundle of magazines on the front steps.
We shared, sometimes passing them back and forth until we'd read them all, and I took a few with me and my sunglasses and made my way over to the water.
We had an old picnic table that was tilting slowly into the ground.
It wasn't bad enough that my glass of tea would spill, but I added it to my mental list for a fix-up.
I remembered seeing a stack of old bricks in the shed we could use to brace the legs.
Hand-me-downs and fixer-uppers.
That was the cottage.
We'd put out a few lounge chairs the day before, and I dragged one into the shade of a tall beech tree.
As I struggled one-handed to spread my towels over it, I remembered the chairs we'd had when I was little.
There was one that folded flat, though you had to have an engineering degree to set it up again.
It was made of canvas and a wooden frame and I thought of my father flipping the fabric this way and that sure that he had it this time then trying to sit and the whole thing collapsing.
Then there were the beach chairs my mother and I tried to lay on.
They were the kind that folded up like a trifold wallet.
They're seats made of rubbery plastic tubes that your skin would get pinched in and leave you with striped marks all over your body once you eventually managed to stand up out of them.
The frames were aluminum that rusted almost instantly and buckled when you tried to flip onto your belly.
I could still remember the clicking sound, the hinges made as you lowered or lifted the headrest, trying to get comfortable.
I was almost certain, though, that we still had all of those chairs somewhere in the cottage.
Finally, I settled into my spot and found a flattish patch of grass to rest my drink.
I took a long, slow breath and let it out.
My magazines could wait.
I wanted to watch the water.
There was a light breeze today, and a few boats out, so the surface rippled and rose in soft waves.
I closed my eyes and listened.
I could hear water birds calling.
The far-off buzz of a lawnmower.
Water lapping against boat hulls and, high and softer than all of it, the light rustle of the breeze in the leaves.
I knew in a minute or two that first summer nap of the season. would swallow me up.
I'd doze, deeply, happily, warm and content.
Awake to find all the ice cubes in my tea melted. and the magazines flapping in the breeze.
I held on to this moment for just a little longer.
That sweet feeling of inevitable heavy sleep. coming to restore me.
Sweet dreams.
