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This struggle goes on for about twenty more minutes before productivity wins out. Rolling off my raft, I stand and fold the cotton sheet, dragging the mattress up to the porch behind me. Then I say good night to the moon and go inside the house to deal with the detritus of my day.

Later, lying in my bed, I feel cut off from everything that is going on outside my windows. I feel too loose, like a baby who has been unwound from her swaddling clothes and does not know what to do with her limbs. Outside, the gentle weight of the night had put me in my place and held me there, so that I could not ignore the spectacle of an ordinary summer evening. On a night like this, it is hard to understand why anyone would choose a reading lamp and the hum of the air conditioner over a box seat at the sound-and-light show outside, where it is always opening night.

Excerpted from Learning to Walk in the Dark. by Barbara Brown Taylor.