These days, everyone talks about how divided we all are, how different, and maybe that's true in some ways, but I still think people are more alike than different. Take all of us here, everyone who's part of this little snoozeville community. We're scattered across the world, different ages, different lives, but we all know exactly what sleeplessness feels like. We know what it's like to watch the clock change from two to two thirty-seven to three fifteen, calculating and recalculating how many hours of sleep we might still get. We know the frustration of being exhausted all day, only to find ourselves suddenly awake the moment our head hits the pillow. We know what it means to dread bedtime, because we're not sure if sleep will come, and I think it helps a bit when you're lying there in the dark, feeling like the only person in the world who can't do this one simple thing, fall asleep, to remember that you're not alone.And it's important to know that all of us, every single one of us, will sleep again. I promise you that. It may not be exactly when you want, or for as long as you want, but you will sleep.Your body knows how to do this. It's done it thousands of times before. But before we get started, the practical stuff, please make sure you're somewhere completely safe to fall asleep. And while I have you here, if this podcast is helping you find sleep, I would be very grateful if you would leave a review. All reviews are so welcome, but especially if you're listening on Apple Podcasts. I think because on Apple it takes a few more steps to leave a review, you really have to want to do it. But no pressure. Just knowing that you're out there listening is enough. So now, let's help your body prepare for the deep rest it's been craving. First, find your most comfortable position. Shift and adjust until everything feels just right. If you're someone who loves having the blankets tucked in snugly all around you, do that now. Fluff your pillow. Or if you're a pillow person like me, fluff all of your many pillows. There's no wrong way to get comfortable.And then take a deep breath. Really deep. Imagine the air traveling all the way down through your chest, past your stomach, flowing down through your legs, all the way to your toes. Fill yourself completely with this breath, and then release it. And as you exhale, feel the tension leaving your body along with that breath. All the tightness in your jaw, your shoulders, your back.Everything you don't need from today flowing out and away. Today is complete. Tomorrow, well, you'll take care of tomorrow.Right now, there's just this. This chance to rest, this permission to be still. Feel your heart rate beginning to slow. With each breath, it beats a little more gently, a little more peacefully. The urgent rhythm of your day is downshifting. Like a car that's been moving from highway speed to a quiet neighborhood street. Slower, steadier, calmer. Your nervous system is recognizing these signals. The stillness of your body, the depth of your breathing, the darkness around you. The subtle tension you've been carrying in your neck, your shoulders, your lower back. Feel it beginning to dissolve. Your arms are growing heavier.Your legs are sinking deeper into the mattress. And now let's take you somewhere peaceful, to a community garden, where strangers have become something more, where the light is soft, the work is gentle, and everything moves at the unhurried pace of growing things. The community garden sits tucked between two apartment buildings in a neighborhood where green space feels like a small miracle.From the street, you might miss it entirely. It's just a break in the concrete, a wooden gate painted blue, a handwritten sign that reads, Growing Together. Let's step through that gate and the city shifts. The air smells different here. Cool earth and dried leaves. It's late afternoon and the light has that particular quality that only happens in autumn. In the northeast corner, two plots sit side by side. In one, a young man kneels on a foam pad, carefully pulling up the last of his pepper plants. His hands work slowly, easing each root system free.He places them gently on a blue tarp beside him. The plot shows signs of careful tending. Straight rows where lettuce grew in neat succession. Bamboo stakes bundled and tied with twine, a handwritten label marking where he tried carrots. The soil is dark and healthy, enriched with compost. For someone new to this work, there's a precision in every detail that speaks of careful planning.In the adjacent plot, a young woman works among the herbs that have taken over most of her space. Oregano sprawls, thick and woody stem. Time cascades over the plot's border.She's cutting them back now, bundling stems. Her loose t-shirt reveals arms brown from summer sun and marked with small scratches from blackberry canes. She pushes loose hair back with the inside of her wrist, leaving a smudge of soil across her temple. These two work in an easy rhythm. When the young man reaches for the ball of twine that sits between their plots, the woman has already nudged it closer to him with her foot. When her trowel falls behind her, he retrieves it and places it within reach.Small gestures, wordless, the kind that develop between people who've spent many hours working side by side. Last spring, these were just strangers claiming adjacent plots. Now there's something unspoken but unmistakable in the way they orbit each other.Two will share without asking. Comfortable silences, the occasional exchange of a smile. The garden holds others this afternoon.Near the back fence, two women tend their plot together. Their voices rising and falling in Ukrainian. They work in perfect tandem. One spreading mulch while the other follows behind, patting it down around the green shoots of garlic planted for next spring's harvest. Their plot overflows its boundaries. Still gone to seed. Cucumber vines still sprawling. In April, when these plots were first claimed and people arrived with their seeds and tools and hopes, they were simply individuals who happened to share fence lines. The gardens have a way of creating community.A shared hose becomes a shared conversation. Advice about aphids turns into friendship. By June, people knew each other's names. By August, they were saving seeds for each other, sharing surplus tomatoes, watching each other's plots during vacation weeks. Three plots down, a man coils his hose with precision. His plot is immaculate.Neat labels marking each bed. Not a weed visible anywhere. Against the western fence, a woman takes photographs of her plot, capturing the sculptural beauty of dried sunflower stalks and bean poles wrapped in dying vines.The light is thickening now. Shadows stretch longer. The temperature drops steadily as the sun lowers. The young woman pulls on a flannel shirt. The young man's bare arms show goosebumps, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's spreading mulch now over his emptied beds. The straw is dry and golden, compressed in bales at the corner of the garden. He takes it by the handful, scattering it evenly, covering the dark soil. The mulch smells like late summer, hayfields and sunshine captured and dry. The sounds of the garden at this hour create their own music. The scrape of trowels against soil, the rustle of dried leaves, the distant hum of traffic, ever-present but muffled, the cooing of pigeons settling into the eaves. A robin hops along the border of one plot, pulling at earthworms. The two Ukrainian women finish their work and begin gathering their tools. They stop by the corner plot and one presses glass jars into the hands of the young man and woman. Pickled beets, jewel red through the clear glass.Words are exchanged, soft and brief. This, too, is part of what has grown here. Not just vegetables, but these small acts of generosity, these gestures of care between people who, six months ago, were strangers. The methodical man leaves next, his coiled hose over his shoulder. He raises one hand in farewell. A general acknowledgement of the garden and its people. The woman with the camera shoulders her bag and slips through the gate with barely a sound. And then the garden holds just the two young people and their side-by-side plot. The sun touches the roof line of the western building and the light changes from gold to something deeper, amber shifting toward the first hint of purple. The temperature has dropped enough that breath becomes just barely visible in the dimming air. They finish their mulching and stand, brushing straw from their jeans. They both pause for a long moment, looking at their work.Two plots, side by side. Neatly tucked in for winter sleep. They gather their tools and place them in the small shed where everyone's equipment hangs on hooks.They wash their hands at the spigot near the gate. The water running cold over their soil-stained fingers. They walk to the blue gate together. He pulls it closed and it creaks in its familiar way. For a moment, they stand on the sidewalk. The noise louder out here.Traffic closer. People moving faster. But the two young people move at a different pace. Still carrying the garden's time in their bodies. They turn in the same direction and fall into step. Walking slowly. Their movements still synchronized. The woman's flannel shirt flaps open as she walks. And she finally buttons it against the growing chill.Both still smell of earth and herbs of autumn and honest work. They walk without speaking. Comfortable in silence.They turn onto the avenue heading east. Ahead, three blocks away, a bridge arches over the canal that cuts through this part of the city. It's a small bridge.Old stone and wrought iron. With lamp posts just beginning to glow in the gathering dusk. They reach the bridge and slow.Below them, the water moves in gentle ripples reflecting the sky's transformation from blue to orange. The first hints of purple. The city lights are beginning to appear in windows across the canal. Hundreds of small squares of warm light. Marking where people are settling in for the evening. The city moves around them. Cars crossing the bridge. People passing behind them. The constant murmur of traffic. The two at the railing are still. Standing in a pocket of quiet. Then, slowly, carefully, his hand moves to cover hers. For a heartbeat, she doesn't move. Then her fingers curl around his, her grip warm. She turns her head to look at him, and even in the dimming light, the smile that transforms her face is visible. They don't speak. They simply stand there, hands linked on the iron railing, watching the canal below. The water beneath them carries leaves downstream, small golden boats of October riding the current. The lamp posts grow brighter as the sky grows darker. They walk slowly, unhurried, still carrying the garden's peace in their bodies. Their silhouettes grow smaller as they move down the avenue, becoming just two figures among many, two small stories in a city of millions. And then they turn a corner, and they're gone from view, leaving only the evening street behind them—the glowing lamp posts, the moving traffic, the steady pulse of urban life continuing its rhythm. In the garden itself, now empty and quiet, the mulched beds lie still in gathering darkness. The soil beneath is hidden, protected, holding the promise of next spring's growth. The fence posts cast faint shadows. The blue gate is latched. The tools hang on their hooks in the shed. The city settles around this small green space, protecting it. Above the garden, above the buildings, the night sky deepens. Stars become visible, first the brightest ones, then others as eyes adjust. The moon rises—waning now, just past full—casting its silver-blue light across rooftops and streets. The canal reflects this light, carrying it on ripples downstream. The bridge where two people held hands stands empty now, its lamp posts glowing steadily in the darkness.All over the neighborhood, all across the city, people are settling in for night. The city breathes together in its nighttime rhythm—an elaborate network of communities, some tiny, some large, all interwoven. Traffic thins but never fully stops. Distant sirens wail and fade. A dog barks, then quiets. The buildings stand solid in the darkness, holding all these separate lives, these small dreams, these individual stories that somehow connect through shared soil and shared seasons, through small morning nods and conversations about the weather, through the brief exchanges that create the fabric of community.These small connections matter more than we sometimes realize. The person you see at the bus stop every Tuesday. The barista who knows your order. The stranger you smile at in passing. These tiny threads of recognition, of shared humanity, they add up to something. They remind us we're not alone, even on nights when sleep feels far away.And tonight, right now, you're part of another small community—this collection of listeners scattered across the world, each lying in the dark in their own bed, in their own city or town or countryside, miles and miles apart. All of you feeling, perhaps, that particular loneliness of being awake when the world around you seems to be sleeping.But you're not alone. Not really. We're all here together under the same vast sky, in different beds, in different places, all connected in one simple, beautiful way—this shared hope for sleep, this shared moment of quiet.Sleep will come. Maybe not as immediately as you'd like—sleep rarely works that way. Your job is simply to rest here, to be still. The moon climbs higher, its light falling on sleeping streets, on empty gardens, on windows dark and windows still glowing. It falls on the canal where water flows endlessly. It falls on the bridge with its patient stone and iron. Higher still, beyond the city lights, the sky goes on forever. Deep indigo fading to black, studded with lights that have traveled years to reach here. The same stars that have seen countless seasons of planting and harvest and rest. The same stars that watch over all of us tonight, wherever we are, as we search for sleep. Feel yourself settling now, sinking deeper into your bed. Your body is heavy, pleasantly tired. Your muscles are releasing, letting go, settling into perfect stillness.  Your breathing has slowed, deep and even, requiring no thought, no effort. Each breath takes you deeper into rest, further into this darkness. Your mind is quiet now. Sleep will find you. Your only job is to rest here, to be still, to let your body do what it knows how to do. Sleep now, deeply and completely. Let yourself go the way day lets itself go into night. Let yourself rest the way earth rests through winter. Let yourself sleep the way the garden sleeps—trusting, peaceful, gathering strength for growth yet to come. I'm Suzanne. This is your ticket to snoozeville. Sleep now. Sleep deeply. Sleep well.