Phew. Today has been go-go-go. This morning I woke up at 8:15(!) to teach a dance lesson at nine. I’m not complaining–it’s nice to be employed–but this means I didn’t get a lot of sleep. Again, this is okay. If someone wants to pay me to to teach the mambo at five in the morning, I’m gonna prop my eyelids open, brush my teeth (because I’m courteous), and get my hips a-movin’.

Thankfully, people don’t normally schedule dance lessons at nine in the morning. But today’s couple, when they originally scheduled, needed to be somewhere. Then, yesterday, when they tried to push it until later in the day, I’m the one who said I’d like to do it sooner rather than later. (Me!) Because I had a family reunion to get to.

The family reunion was for my mom’s side of the family, the side that we haven’t been historically close to. Granted, I know a few cousins (once removed) and second cousins. But, y’all, today I met dozens of relatives–third cousins, fourth cousins–people of all ages. It was the weirdest thing, this whole senior citizen center full of family I’ve never met. It was like, I don’t know, going to Walmart, except knowing you’re related to everyone in the dairy section. I kept thinking I’d probably crossed paths with some of them before but hadn’t realized it. I mean, what’s a relative look like? I still can’t get over the idea that next week I could easily be at the taco truck ordering a chicken burrito and a distant relative could be standing in line behind me without my having any idea.

When the reunion ended, I met my friend Megan to say goodbye. She’s been visiting this week from Israel, and she’s flying back home tomorrow. Who knows when I’ll see her again? I’d say it will be a while, but then again, two weeks ago I wouldn’t have said I’d see her this week. Her whole trip was planned last minute–so she could see her nephew’s graduation. Anyway, this is the cool thing about life–you never know–when you’ll see your friends again, or even whom you’re related to. So hope and be kind. That guy at the taco truck could be married to your third cousin!

This evening I had dinner with a few friends. We ate at a local sushi restaurant that sat us in the back corner of a small room. My friend Aaron joked that we were in sushi prison. Oh well, the food tasted the same. However, just as we were getting ready to pay and leave, the power went out. Like, completely. All of a sudden we were in the dark. Thankfully, no one panicked, and the lights came back on in short order.

Leaving the restaurant, we all went to Target. Aaron and his wife, Kate, have a four-year-old son, and I guess they’d bargained with (bribed) him earlier in the day–if he’d wear a bowtie to a wedding, he could have a Target toy. And whereas he had a fabulous time, the lights were off there too. Well, sort of. See, there was a teensy-tiny tornado that apparently passed through Fort while I was at the reunion today (in a different city), and a lot of people and places ended up without power. Consequently, a number of businesses closed. But not Target–they had backup power. This amounted to–I don’t know–one in every forty florescent bulbs working. Kate kept calling it “Dark Target.”

Now I’m back to the place where I’m house sitting. It’s almost midnight, and I’m really fighting to stay awake. On the way here I noticed that several areas of town are still unlit. No overhead power lights, no traffic lights. Just Dark. And whereas this was a bit unsettling at first, I was reminded that this is what happens on planet earth. It gets dark at night. And just because we’ve found ways to brighten our homes and streets around the clock, that doesn’t mean the world itself doesn’t get dark the way it’s supposed to. That’s the thing with darkness. I’m speaking literally and metaphorically. It’s natural. It doesn’t have to be scary or unsettling. Having fallen in love with staying up late (when I’m not exhausted) to work or look at the stars, I now find the dark quite comforting. It’s quiet, peaceful. I can hear myself think. I can create. In my imagination, anything can happen.

You never know.