Tomorrow, Saturday, I am moving back to school. I am moving back into the dormitories, on a co-ed floor populated almost exclusively by freshmen. I am moving back into a 10-by-14 foot room with no immediate means of cooking or, more to the point, baking.
And I am excited.
My brown-brick building is among the oldest of the standing dormitories on our campus, and has grandiose white columns flanking the giant set of steps leading up the front. In the back, the outdoor stairwell on the first floor has stairs going down either side of it, the only disappointing part of which is the campus-wide ban on smoking. The cement on those steps is old, rough, sandy and worn, having kept the company of decades upon decades of students. I think it would’ve been an entirely romantic place for a cigarette. However, all disappointment in the smoking ban (infringement on civil liberties aside) is far overshadowed by the fact that my bedroom sits directly above and behind two of the three front columns, faces out onto a lovely, miniature field of a courtyard, fringed with trees, where everyone gathers when it’s warm, and is rumored – but only rumored, mind you – to have a small balcony on the outside of it.
It is my firm belief that if such a balcony exists – and oh, rapture! if it does – it is not meant for my use. That does nothing to stop me from imagining the glory that could be taken in, sitting out on it in one of my vintage aluminum lawn chairs, sipping a lemonade and taking in the Eastern view of town. Or, in the fall, making some tea, bundling into one of my oversized, slouching, rumply grandfather-esque cardigans, and sitting out there, watching as the leaves, crumbly and starched, move on the breeze like they are floating down invisible, airborne streams.
Winter may be less of an option, but even so, perhaps just slipping out onto it once, on a rare, clear December night, with a moon, to stare across the courtyard of unblemished virgin snow, gulping cold air and complete stillness into my lungs and imagine that I am the only one who is there. Or, if not, to dream of the spring. 

Whatever other seasons may bring with them, I do think it seems worthwhile to ferry one or both lawn chairs up to the tiny, third-floor room, on the chance that I can make it happen soon – lemonade and all.