I'm Having Camp Dreams Again

It happens every year, as August comes and goes, and I find myself sitting at a desk all day and fighting the hot, hot, humid brutal summer every time I step outside, and my dreams start filling up with long, sweet days back at Camp Mystic in the Texas hill country.  Eventually, my dreams start to get so full of camp, that they spill over, and even in waking moments I can almost feel like I'm back there.

I can smell the cool, green smell of the Guadalupe river, stretching to fill it's banks with a rolling respite from the heat.  I can smell the crisp, green smell of just-mowed grass on the golf course and feel it under my bare feet, soft and prickly at the same time.  I can smell the rough, brown smell of bark from towering cypress trees and the warm, brown smell of rich earth right before it rains.  I can smell the bright, red and yellow smells of campfires and kerosene and cheering girls on tribe hill.

I can feel the lift in my spirits, the swell of pride in my chest when the Tonkawas win a game.  I feel my lungs bursting from running my heart out in the field-day relay race and my throat aching from cheering and screaming so hard.  I can feel the crack of my ankle rolling under me in a severe sprain, something that somehow managed to happen to me at least once every year. I can feel sweet-salty tears spreading over my face, saying sad good-byes to the girls- and the place- I would spend a whole year missing.

I can hear the din of voices shouting across a crowded lunch hall, gleeful and ringing. I can hear the murmur of whispers during "rest hour" as girls turned pages and passed notes and hoped not to get caught.  I can hear the bray of horses in the early morning mist on the way down to advanced western riding.  I can hear silvery-golden voices, joined and lifted in song.  So many songs, I can hear them all.  Hymns and folk-songs and silly songs and campfire songs.  Rounds and solos and choruses, all of them chiming and blending and harmonizing.  And I can hear the laughter.  Gales and peals and chortles, snorts and bursts and great, big, belly laughs.

And I can see it all.  So many smiling faces, so many dear hearts.  Friends and foes and partners and mentors.  Idols and little sisters and students and kindred spirits.  Wood and grass and river and stable.  Hay and field and cabin and rock.  Stream and fern and tree and star.  Green and red and blue and rich, rich brown.  I can see it and hear it and feel it all.  Almost like I'm there.  Almost, but not quite.

I miss it so much these days.  I guess you could say, this time of year, I just get a little camp-sick.