[EDITED VERSION] I have been temperate always, but

EDIT: You may have wondered why my writing suddenly turned willowy and gentle and beautiful in this post. Well -ahem- my dear friend Deborah and I pulled a switcheroo and wrote a guest post on each other's blogs! Only we didn't tell anyone. So that's her wonderful writing below. Method: Find Fleet Foxes song, pick a stanza, and write on it! My mini-essay can be found at Deborah's lovely site - make sure to keep reading and check out her thoughtful, beautifully crafted posts while you're there (of course, if you're a Samford folk, you know what I'm talking about). We had lotsa fun on Friday writing our mystery appearances, sipping tea and laughing when we found out we'd ended exactly the same way.

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Today is one of these rare, refreshingly alive-feeling days (at least, rare in the summer; the heat alone is almost enough to wilt me and when the humidity is up it well nigh saps the lifeblood out of me!). Those are more common in the spring, when all about me appears new after the bland sameness of the frosty months.

Really, though. Even now in mid-August, I find myself wanting to go skip through the ankle-deep manicured meadow (that is, the campus Quadrangle), proclaiming to anybody and nobody who'll listen that life is beautiful and wondrous and, well, alive. Problem is, it's another week before most of campus returns and, in all likelihood, there will be nobody there to listen. I feel as though I've prematurely arrived to a play, presented my ticket, and found only the empty, incomplete set on the stage (but I have been so anxious to see this performance that I don't mind it--I've gotten an early glimpse, that's all). However, now it's whet my appetite for more.

And there I go, about to wear out that old line from Shakespeare in which "all the world's a stage." Can't I just say, "I'm ready for school to begin again," and be done with it? But it's more than that now. It reminds me of quiet weekends on campus when everyone's off home or on some adventure and I go outside to enjoy the surrounding view--then realize no one's here to share the moment with me. Not to mention that in order to get into this little haven from any direction requires quite the climb up and over and down these leafy green hills. One lyric keeps weaseling its way into my thoughts: "Come down from the mountain, you have been gone too long... Darling, I can barely remember you beside me--you should come back home, back on your own now." (and isn't it interesting how a song seems to find me in the precise moment I need it?) Other times I might find the situation lonely and somewhat depressing, but I guess the anticipation is what's so invigorating today. Looking forward to returning here as a resident and not just a guest in a dear friend's dormitory. To welcoming back everybody I've missed in the past two months. To do all the catching up I can stand and sail into the year with fresh energy.

I'm just ready to see the life return down from the mountain.