Lights Out

The phone's face-down on the nightstand. That was the first thing. The second thing was the kettle.

Goodnight Moon is in the cup. Chamomile and passionflower and something lavender, steaming in the half-dark. It smells the way your shoulders feel when they finally drop — like the day just exhaled itself out of the room.

Some nights that's enough. Chamomile on its own, the original, the one your grandmother used before "sleep hygiene" was a phrase anyone said out loud. It binds to the same receptors as the fancy stuff. It just does it quietly.

Other nights need more. Sweet Dreams brings valerian into the mix — earthy, heavy, not messing around. Serenity Now! for the evenings when calm feels like a negotiation. Lemon Balm when the edge is subtle but real, when you're not anxious exactly, just not settled.

Valerian Root for the nights you mean business. It smells like it works, and it does.

And Om Sweet Om in the morning — because tonight's sleep is tomorrow's start, and the whole thing is a circle.

Seven teas. One nightstand. The kind of dark where you don't fight it — you pour something warm and let it win.