Maya loved evenings the most.
The part of the night when the house exhaled,
Lights low,
Slippers soft on old wooden floors.
The world outside humming faintly like a lullaby.
Some nights,
She'd make chamomile tea and wrap herself in the sweater with the stretched out sleeves,
The one that smelled faintly of lavender and last summer's sunlight.
She would sit near the window where the straight lamp casts a warm puddle of gold across the rug and the shadows of leaves danced quietly on the wall.
There was something comforting about the way the night softened the edges of things,
How dishes in the sink no longer felt like failures,
And unread messages felt less like urgency,
More like tomorrow's business.
Still,
On nights like these,
Thoughts moved through her like slow tides,
Gentle but insistent.
Small worries with long shadows,
A strange look someone gave her,
A text she re-read twice,
A drifting sense that she might have said the wrong thing.
Not loud enough to be called anxiety,
More like weather passing through the inner landscape.
Instead of fighting it,
Maya reached for her sketchbook.
Not to make art,
Just to move something from the inside out.
The paper was cool beneath her wrist.
Her pencil left soft charcoal trails like footsteps.
She began drawing without a plan,
Houses stacked loosely like memories.
Windows glowing,
Windows dark,
Alleyways leading everywhere and nowhere.
The picture felt like a feeling she couldn't name,
Heavy,
Uncertain,
Familiar.
On the next page,
Her lines shifted.
Lighter strokes,
Open space,
A single window with light spilling out as though something hopeful lived inside.
Same pencil,
Same hand,
Two worlds.
She stared at the pages side by side,
Sun brushed against rain,
Heaviness beside ease,
And something unwound inside her,
Quiet,
Like fabric loosening at the seam.
Maybe the story wasn't fact.
Maybe it was an interpretation,
A version,
Not the truth.
The pencil hadn't changed,
Only the way it was used.
Her mind,
She realized,
Was the same.
She closed the sketchbook and returned to the warm pool of lamplight.
Tea cooling beside her,
The night around her breathing slowly.
She didn't force herself into certainty.
She didn't rewrite the day.
She just held herself the way one holds a fragile object,
With curiosity,
Not control.
Sometimes shifting the story is simply remembering that more than one story exists.
She turned off the lamp,
Slid beneath her blankets,
And let darkness cradle her like water.
Not soft,
But soothed.
And sleep took her like a page turning itself.
Settle into your blankets.
Feel the way the fabric welcomes your body,
As if it knows exactly how to hold you.
Take a slow breath in,
And sigh it out.
You don't need to rewrite anything tonight.
Only set down what's heavy enough to rest.
A thought from today might rise,
Like a charcoal sketch appearing in the mind.
Just notice it.
Name the feeling if you want,
But don't chase it,
Don't grip it,
Imagine placing that thought on a page,
Edges,
Shades,
Textures.
Now picture a second page beneath it,
Blank,
Unhurried,
Waiting.
As you inhale,
Place your hand,
Metaphorically or literally,
On your heart.
As you exhale,
Let the lines of the first drawing smudge,
Soften,
Blur.
You don't have to know the new story yet.
You only need space for it to exist.
Whisper gently to yourself,
Barely audible,
Another version might be true.
I can let this one rest for the night.
So again,
Take an inhale with the thought or actual hand on your heart.
As you exhale,
Let the lines of the first drawing smudge,
Soften,
Blur.
Again,
Inhale,
Feel it there,
Exhale,
Let it smudge.
Two more times,
Inhale,
Exhale,
Smudge and soften.
Last one,
Inhale,
Exhale,
Smudge.
Feel your body sink deeper into warmth,
Muscles loosening like ribbon unwinding,
Thoughts begin to move like slow birds at dusk,
Wings beat softer,
Farther,
Fading.
The inhale paints a stroke of ease over the nervous system,
The exhale erases everything.
Inhale,
Paint a stroke of ease over the mind,
Over the body,
The exhale erases and lets that all fall away.
In a moment,
We'll move to counting the breaths,
Holding that visual in your mind,
On the next inhale,
Count 1,
2,
3,
4,
Exhale 1,
2,
3,
4.
On the next inhale,
Count 1,
2,
3,
4,
Exhale 1,
2,
3,
4.
Like ocean waves,
Inhale,
Exhale.
Embracing the rise and fall,
Inhale,
Exhale.
Last one,
Inhale,
Exhale.
In a moment,
We'll count down from 20 to 1.
All you have to do is listen to the count.
20,
The mind starts to soften.
19,
The body feels heavy.
18,
The toes get soft.
17,
The fingers get heavy.
16,
The eyes get heavy.
15,
The body softens.
14,
The mind gets emptied.
13,
The toes get soft.
12,
Fingers heavy.
11,
Whole body soft.
10,
Whole body even softer.
9,
The mind welcomes rest.
8,
Nowhere else to be.
7,
Nothing else to do.
6,
Completely trusting this rest.
5,
No one is asking anything of you.
4,
The body sinks into the bed.
3,
The body sinks deeper into the bed.
2,
The jaw unclenches soft.
1,
We have landed in the deepest point.
