in summer, the song sings itself.

I'm sitting in my house in Staples, comfortable on the couch while my dog naps next to me. I'm so contented. It helps that my parents finally, finally, FINALLY got high-speed internet, so our house is wired with wireless now. After approximately a decade of dial-up, being able to sit in the living room with my laptop is nothing short of miraculous, really.
I went in to the coffee shop this morning, too. It's about twice as big as it used to be; it's been expanded into the building/room next door. Going home to see it and remembering all the work I did to help start that makes me so proud and glad every single time I go in there. My town is filled with such good people. At the coffee shop I ran into Kelsey's mom, Amy, for awhile and we chatted for a few minutes and then when I went to leave she was like, "Oh, I just have to give you a hug. It was so good to see you and talk to you!" And it's moments like that where I remember all the good things about my town instead of just the smallness and isolation of it. There is still "Minnesota nice" in the cities but it's not the same kind. I don't run into people who watched me grow up there and they don't feel the need to hug me. It's nice to feel that kind of community now and again.
Last night it was so dark and quiet outside. Quietness and darkness in St. Paul are not the same as here. Quiet in St. Paul means I can still hear the traffic on Snelling, people walking down the street at all hours, the orangey smokey glow of the streetlamps and porch lights and the neon flicker or store signs. Here, quiet means dead silence, so quiet that I can hear the silence in between the cricket chirps and if I don't turn on any of our outside lights, the only light I can really actually see comes from the stars and the moon when they are out, otherwise there's only the dimmest of light left coming from above the cloudy cover and I can only see the most shadowy outlines of the trees in our yard. It was so quiet in my room last night that I could hear my dog breathing next to my bed and every tiny creak of the house settling. It's so different. It's a nice change. Don't get me wrong, I love the city's sounds but it is nice to be elsewhere now and then.
I have a meeting about my job at the state fair on Monday. It's going to be a long 12-day stretch - working mornings on campus and almost every afternoon/evening at the fair, but it's less than two weeks and I know the owners and some of the staff already and they are great people, and I definitely need the money. Books aren't cheap and I need twelve of them just for my senior seminar. I can't believe classes will start again in like two and a half weeks - yikes. This has been, without question, one of the best summers of my life, maybe the best. It isn't quite over yet, but it's wrapping up very nicely.