Let down your guard as your bedtime journey begins right now.
Inviting you to your inner child's most enchanting thoughts.
You are listening to.
The Magic Attic.
Sleep story crafted to carry you gently out of the day across the dreamy bridge into the deep restorative rest you deserve.
Tonight,
Travel to the English countryside.
In the summer of 1982,
A year of wonder and magic.
The rain arrives as a soft-footed and faithful invitation to hunker down.
Tapping at the windows and landing on the thatched roofs of old stone cottages.
You find refuge in a cozy attic.
Tucked inside a home in a quiet village.
Once the secret hideaway of a young magician-in-training.
Settle beneath its centuries-old beams,
Among its candlelit corners,
And rain-streaked glass that act as a portal into another time.
Snuggle up in this home-away-from-home that offers the peculiar yet awe-inspiring feeling But some places have been waiting just for you.
It's time to dream away.
Welcome to Michelle's Sanctuary.
I'm Michelle,
Your sleepy guide tonight,
And I invite you to settle in and receive my voice the way you might receive the company of a dear trusted friend.
The kind you might enjoy a spot of tea with.
Afraid to let down your guard.
And always be your most authentic self.
As always,
This story belongs to you.
You may adjust any detail,
Any image.
Any corner of it.
To fit what your mind and body need most tonight.
As sleep draws closer.
My voice may simply dissolve into the sound of rain the way the flame of a candle dissolves in the dark as you blow it out.
The inspiration behind this week's tale.
Came from my most recent visit to an off-Broadway magic show.
It was the third magic performance I've seen over the past year.
And each one left me with the same wonderful feeling of nostalgia at one of those shows just as the performance was about to begin.
A spotlight swept across the audience and landed on me.
Despite my hesitation,
A few moments later I was standing on stage,
Answering an old rotary telephone,
Repeating the words of a mysterious mentalist on the other end of the line.
It felt spectacularly surreal,
Almost dreamlike.
Surrounded by a set that seemed to belong to another era.
It reminded me of the homes of older relatives I visited as a child.
Places filled with quiet corners,
Well-loved furniture,
And the comforting sense that every object had a story to tell.
Amaze,
The most recent show I saw this week,
Flashes back to 1982,
The year I was born.
Like much of the 80s.
It was a time when the world still made room for wonder.
Before the cynicism of the information age.
Stage magic filled theaters,
Fantasies like E.
T.
Captured our imaginations and there was a feeling that the impossible might just be possible.
And songs like You Can Do Magic.
Drifted through open windows that summer.
Along with every little thing she does is magic.
Keeping that spirit alive.
I invite you to take this time.
To connect with the magic of your own breath.
Faithfully arrives without thought or effort even when you don't notice.
Sense the air shifting in your room.
Taking on the cool dampness.
Of an English garden.
On a rainy night.
Let out a long,
Deliberate sigh.
Celebrating making it through yet another day.
As you inhale.
You sense a hint of climbing roses.
Releasing a soft perfume.
The rain lands on their silken petals.
And as you exhale,
Feel yourself expanding Sighing again.
Taking all the space you desire.
As you stretch out and find comfort.
And I count us down.
Bye Begin at the very top of yourself.
Crown of your head.
Your forehead,
Your temples,
The muscles around your eyes.
Feel them soften.
The way a summer sky releases itself into rain.
Your jaw unclenches Your lips part slightly and the first hint of cool English air.
Wafts through your room.
With an air of mystery.
Four,
Your shoulders drop and your neck lengthens The muscles across your upper back melt away.
Your arms grow pleasantly heavy.
Your hands all open.
Your fingers at rest.
Three,
Your chest softens.
And your belly rises and falls with ease.
Your breath becomes slower carrying you deeper into comfort.
This gentle rain continues to fall.
Two,
Your lower back releases,
Your hips become warm and grounded.
Your thighs,
Knees,
Calves,
Ankles and feet.
Of the day.
And your whole body grows pleasantly heavy.
One From the top of your head to the soles of your feet.
You have arrived in stillness.
And in this relaxing state.
It's time for the story to begin.
You find yourself on a train as it pulls into the station.
A small village just two hours from the bustle of London.
Your ticket rests in your hand.
And you read the date.
July 7,
1982 You lean against the carriage windows as the train slows.
And the brakes softly squeal.
Outside,
The countryside floats in that unmistakable English light.
Diffused silvery gray.
Peculiar cast that makes it quite impossible to tell the time of day.
The clouds spread like gauze across the sun.
Leaving the town muted at the same time.
Creating a contrast with the rolling meadows.
To make them appear more saturated and varying shades of green.
You approach the doors as they open.
And stairs lead you to a small platform.
Of the stone arch.
And a hanging cast iron lantern.
Glows an orange marmalade hue in the sea of gray.
You step out into the early evening.
The platform is nearly deserted.
And as the train moves on.
And its sound fades into the rain.
And then into silence.
You are left standing beneath your umbrella.
Finding your bearings.
You are the only passenger to disembark.
To balance your bag on your shoulder.
As you make your way into the heart of the village.
The rain falls in a fine and steady curtain.
It's mist kissing your lips.
As you take a narrow winding path.
The cobblestone streets shine beneath it.
Each stone a small silver mirror of the sky and the lights around.
A bakery on the corner.
Releases warmth.
The smell of something buttery.
Into the damp evening air.
A bookshop window draws your eye.
Its display arranged,
The care of someone who genuinely loves books.
Each one accompanied by a small handwritten card.
From a record shop.
Barely audible through the glass.
Comes a song about magic.
A tune from across the Atlantic.
And a group named America.
Someone passing on the other side of the street.
Starts whistling along.
Melody trailing behind him.
And dissolving into the rain.
Church bells announce the hour.
As you find the road that leads to a stone dwelling.
Where you've planned to spend this holiday.
Reaching the property.
Damp evening chill.
Brings a quick shudder.
Your windbreaker heavy and darkened by the rain.
But there is a distinct,
Almost quirky contentment.
And simply surrendering to the elements.
Light-hearted acceptance.
That is only made easy to carry.
Because you know a warm,
Dry refuge is within reach.
The three-story cottage appears through the mist.
Just beyond a low stone wall draped in climbing roses ivory and deep pink They're petals heavy with rainwater that cascades down the satiny petals.
Its walls are the color of pale pewter.
The stone irregular and hand set.
Covered in patches with moss.
The soft gilded glow from within the cottage.
Conjures a sigh of relief.
As you step on the property.
The keys have been left inside.
A weathered wooden planter.
Overflowing with peonies.
Dappled with raindrops.
You reach beneath the blooms and find them.
Cool and damp in your hands.
The front door opens.
The sight resistance of old wood.
And you step gratefully inside.
Closing out the rain behind you.
The cottage has all the charm.
Of a countryside getaway.
From dark timber beams.
Run the length of the ceiling.
Adorned with boughs of dried laurels.
Many of the rooms have a stone heart.
And are decorated.
With rich jewel-toned accents.
Your windbreaker hangs dripping by the door.
As you make your way up to the bedroom suite.
On the second floor.
Following the quiet promise of warmth.
The hot shower is everything you hoped it would be.
Steam fills the small bathroom.
Carrying the calming fragrance of English lavender soap.
As the last chill of the journey melts away.
By the time you step back into the hallway.
Dressed in soft flannel pajamas.
Thick wool socks.
You feel wonderfully renewed.
As though the day has gently begun again.
Outside.
Night has settled over the village.
Rain continues its patient rhythm against the windows.
The cottage glows the quiet comfort of lamplight.
You make your way to the kitchen below.
Fill the kettle.
And prepare a pot of tea.
Adding a few buttery shortbread biscuits to a small plate to bring with you to the third floor attic.
It was the attic,
More than anything else.
That had persuaded you to book this getaway.
Travel brochure.
Described it.
The former retreat.
Of a celebrated magician.
Who had spent his earliest years.
Beneath its timbered roof.
Traveling the world.
And his astonishing illusions.
But it was the final paragraph.
Let's linger.
In your imagination.
It spoke of the attic as a place with a view across the village.
Seemed especially beautiful.
Even on rainy nights.
Where,
From time to time,
Enchanting things quietly revealed themselves.
And where dreams were said.
An occasion to be prophetic.
You smile to yourself.
As you climb the wide stairs to the second floor.
Tea tray balanced carefully.
In your now warm hands.
Whether any of the addicts folklore is true hardly seems to matter.
Some places simply invite you to believe for a little while.
And as you reach the landing you have the unmistakable feeling up to this.
Is one of them.
The top.
You find a low framed door.
Painted a rich shade of plum.
Its simple brass handle.
Worn silky smooth by countless hands.
You press it gently open.
And beyond.
Final steeper staircase.
Disappears beneath the sloping roof.
Its bare wooden treads,
Polished by time.
The walls drying comfortably close around you.
The air changes before you reach the top.
It's neither warmer.
Nor cooler exactly.
But it's certainly more evocative.
Feels weighted.
As though it has been accumulating something over many years.
It holds the smell of old wood.
Both are sweet.
Slightly ancient.
Along with a hint of beeswax candles.
And dried sage and lavender.
There's also the smell of vinyl records.
Something almost sweet and papery.
And indefinite.
That you will not be able to name.
For the rest of the evening.
Even though it seems so familiar.
The attic is full,
But not cluttered.
Like a well-curated museum.
Has the feeling of a beloved hideout.
With no shortage of cozy options for sitting.
From floor cushions to a cozy nook with a club chair.
To a lounger.
In the tucked away corner.
With a full-sized antique bed.
Discover old trunks with tarnished latches.
Their surfaces marked with stickers.
From ports and cities and railway stations.
You peruse inlaid shelves of books.
About mastering card tricks.
Containing magic potions.
Framed theater posters are arranged on the slanted walls.
Magicians in formal dress.
Gesturing towards stages.
Filled with birds and silks and the implied impossible.
There are decks of playing cards.
Velvet lined boxes.
A brass telescope.
On a wooden tripod.
Angled toward the four-paint window.
Prism resting on the windowsill.
Candles are everywhere.
Their wax accumulated like stalagmites in an ancient cave.
And over all of it.
Elusive,
Sweet quality of air.
You decide at last.
Simply the smell of wonder.
Attention paid over many years to things that reward it.
Hearing a sound.
You look over as the resident cat,
Sage,
Appears.
She's a three-year-old cream-hued cat.
With pale blue eyes.
And a long,
Thick coat.
As you set the tray down on an antique table.
She comes along.
Rubs her purring body against your legs.
You sink into a wide,
Elegant armchair.
Near the rain-streaked window.
Angle to see both the glass.
Most of the attic at once.
The space feels as though it has been expecting company.
And sweet purring sage.
Is more than happy to have you.
Among the books and scattered objects on the nearest shelf.
You find things that tell a remarkable story.
From a small journal with marbled covers.
Theatre programs from London houses.
Newspaper clippings of reviews.
Describing performances.
The sound,
Even now in 1982,
Quite breathtaking.
As the world grows darker.
You find a box of matches.
Light the taper candles.
The various ornate candelabras throughout the attic.
Long before the cottage.
Became available to rent.
Lived a young boy from this very village.
The turn of the 20th century.
He practiced sleight of hand.
Every evening in this attic.
Beneath these same beams.
Dreaming of the day.
He would find love and acclaim.
As an illusionist.
But even long after his wishes were fulfilled.
He always returned to this attic.
Safe beginning of the dream.
Became has lived in reality.
Your eyes land on a framed letter.
Resting on a nearby mahogany side table.
Dated 1966.
Written toward the end of the magician's remarkable life.
Begins by warmly inviting.
Every visitor to make themselves at home.
Toward the end.
He shares a quiet confession.
And loopy curses.
Written by a fountain pen.
He declares that in light of all the astonishing wonders he encountered throughout his travels.
Greatest magic.
Was discovered not on the stage.
It here.
This attic on rainy afternoons.
When he was no longer summoned outside to play.
And the weather left him alone.
With nothing but his vivid imagination.
You sip on the silky tea.
Sweetened perfectly to your liking.
You can sense a change in the room.
Candle flame beside you stirs.
For no particular reason.
The still air.
The rain comes down harder.
Blurring the world beyond the pain.
Curiosity prompts you to rise.
And peruse the vinyl records.
Added more recently.
By the caretaker of the house.
You decide between Fleetwood Mac.
In the Soothing Jazz Collection.
From the Bill Evans Trio.
First soft crackle.
Followed.
By a low playing melody.
It makes every moment count.
Feel richer.
You move through the attic slowly.
The way you might move through a piece of music you love.
And do not want to end.
The attic responds to your curiosity.
In ways that may be subtle.
Which remain undeniable.
A deck of cards seems.
When you look back at them.
To have reorganized themselves.
Almost imperceptibly.
Pocket watch gives a series of quiet ticks when you hold it in your palm.
Just enough to acknowledge being held.
And then goes still.
A book falls open to a page.
Holds exactly the thought.
You are already thinking.
Prism catches.
Some oblique angle of candlelight fills one corner of the attic.
With a brave impossible rainbow.
Rests against the dark beams.
Before Sage chases after it.
And it dissolves back into you.
Dim light.
The longer you linger.
The more the room seems to understand itself in your company.
And the rain outside.
As the most extraordinary things.
You have been watching the window idly.
And in the slow movement.
Water across the glass.
Something begins to form.
You've read about this window.
How it has been rumored to act as a portal through time.
Revealing past and future events.
On the other side of the glass.
Sage hops up on the sill.
Peers out at the rain.
And you stand behind her.
Running your fingers through her lush fur.
As she presses her head against your palms.
And suddenly A wedding party in the garden below appears.
Figures in the formal dress.
Of the Victorian era.
Her face is lit the unguarded happiness.
Of people who are not being watched.
The image holds for a few seconds.
Trembling with the movement of the rain.
And then disappears.
The rain continues to stream down the window.
Blurring the world.
Until another image appears.
With total clarity.
Children at the lane's edge.
Giggling as their father launches a drone overhead.
And an old retriever circles the property.
This future image soon fades.
Replaced with a shepherd moving across the distant hills.
And then a woman kneeling in the garden.
Pressing something into the earth.
With both of her small,
Fragile hands.
Each vision lasts only seconds.
But in your mind they seem to linger longer.
Like memories coming in layers.
Followed by dreams of the distant future.
Each one leaves behind more than an image.
Captures a feeling.
The world continues on.
It has always continued.
Holds within itself.
Layered and overlapping.
All the moments.
That I've ever been lived in it.
Not gone.
Still here.
And even the walls and the glass of the attic.
Remember.
As if drawn out of a dream.
You notice somewhere in the evening something shifts.
You pay attention.
With a specificity.
Quietly quickens something in you.
The room seems to have been arranged.
You in mind.
The books contain your interests.
Turning to pages.
With insights you've been longing to read.
Answering questions.
You have never quite stopped asking.
The more slowly you observe.
The more this quality reveals itself.
As though the room has been holding it.
Reserve.
You stop wondering whether the attic is magical.
You begin instead to wonder.
It feels so precisely like yours.
The thought arrives quietly.
But quickly like the rain did.
It comes with a deep confidence of something.
Knows what it is holding.
And just that what it holds.
Will eventually find its way The rain continues.
The lights of the village have slowly gone out in windows,
One by one.
The village goes to sleep.
The candles have burned down by several inches.
The record has come to a stop.
And you are in the most pleasant and effortless way.
Thoroughly tired.
Kind of tired that comes.
And the perfect amount of stimulation and motion through a day.
Leads to a longing for stillness and sleep.
The waves of sleepiness come in with the rain.
Heady and delightfully delirious.
You tidy up.
To place things back in their proper homes.
And it's something in you lingers.
Feels like something is waiting for you.
Peruse the room.
Then discover.
Beneath the long table at the far wall.
Half hidden beneath a length of old beige linen.
You notice something you did not see when you first came in.
Canvas.
Large and old rain.
You lift the linen away slowly.
It's an oil painting.
Rich in color.
Great attention paid to every detail.
The brushwork is precise.
It also has a dreamlike quality.
Shows an attic interior.
This attic interior.
Painted by someone who knew it intimately.
The beams,
The trunks,
The telescope.
The wide rain-streaked window and the soft smear of the village lights beyond it.
And in the wide armchair.
Near the window.
You see someone sitting comfortably.
The cream cat near their feet.
You hold the candle closer.
The longer you look.
The more the details resolve from the painted surface.
Particular way a figure holds their shoulders.
Shape of the travel bag.
Set by the chair's arm.
A face that looks as familiar as your reflection in a mirror.
Because it's you unmistakably and flatteringly you.
In this attic.
On this rainy night.
In the summer of 1982.
You find the signature in the lower right corner.
Same name from the programs and the clippings.
And below it a date.
Decades before your birth.
You stay with this for a long time.
And trying to explain it.
Feeling both surprised and amused.
You don't want to explain it.
Because that would require this to be a puzzle.
It's not a puzzle.
That's a confirmation This place has always known you would come.
And now.
Standing here in the glow of candlelight.
And the soporific soundtrack of rain.
It feels less like discovery.
It's more like the perfect arrival.
It makes you feel a sense of belonging.
Radiates at your core bringing a feeling of safety and wonder that grows into drowsiness.
You make your way toward the sleeping nook.
Tucked beneath the slope of the roof.
There an antique brass bed waits to welcome you.
Its frame softly dulled with age.
Catching the candlelight.
And quiet amber glints The bedding has been freshly washed.
And you blow out the candles one by one.
Foregoing beneath crisp and cool shades.
And the duvet cover.
Bedding carries the faint clean scent of freshly laundered linen and lavender silk.
The fabric settles around you.
In a calming,
Familiar way.
The bed gives the smallest gentle scream.
It accepts you with full support.
The rain continues its steady rhythm across slate and glass.
Sleepy song that promises to play throughout the night.
Sage curls quietly at your side.
Pressing gently into the warmth of your belly.
She falls asleep almost immediately.
Her easy breathing joins the rain.
Nulling you into a state of absolute serenity.
As you close your eyes.
In the attic holds you.
The rain continues.
And you drift across a timeless magical bridge to sleep.
Binding enchantment.
Finding bliss Finding wonder.
Finding sleep It's time to dream away.
