Exit Summer, Enter Lists

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According to Checkiday.com, today is Beach Party Day. (It's also Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day, which I find much too funny).

Outside my window, it's cloudy and gray, which is just one of the reasons I'd much rather be at the beach (party or no party). But, alas, it's August.

August is list month.

Yes, I'm aware that it was August for much of last week, too, but last Monday, it was still July. I could still deny. Today, it is inarguably August. The calendar above my desk proclaims, "Today is going to be a great day!"

I might believe it if I were at the beach.

Nah. I still believe it. I'm one of those people who thinks it's up to me to decide how my day goes and, since it's August, that means lists.

Lists of things I need to do before the semester starts. Phone calls. Appointments. Shopping lists. Class planning.

You know. All the stuff I was supposed to be checking off those other lists all summer.

And I have been. But now it's time to take stock of what I have done and what I have left to do.

That first part is very important. It's all too easy to focus only on what remains to be done (a battle I fight every day, but am getting better at winning). When we do this, we lose heart, and the energy we need to attack the lists is depleted by guilt and frustration. If we've spent the summer exploring -- which, by definition, requires going off the path, taking detours and finding new possibilities -- it's easy to feel as though we haven't accomplished much.

Photo: Jules Roman via Pixabay

But we have. Or, at least I know I have. An hour of writing here, an hour of class planning there, an hour (broken up into fifteen minute increments) of nagging my daughter to create her back-to-school list.

So, as I sit down to create the lists that will create my road map for the next three weeks, I'm going to add one more list to the pile, one that evokes memories of September essays.

What I did on my summer vacation.

It might make me long for more of the same, but, hey. It's Beach Party Day. A vicarious celebration is better than none at all.

Absquatulating August

When you work at home, business hours are 24-7. It’s a hard habit to break, at least without a fair amount of guilt--even in the summer. I don't actually work 24 hours a day, but, because I make my own schedule, I'm just as likely to be working at 10PM as at 10AM. And, since I'm not a morning person, I'm more likely to be working at 7PM than 7AM.

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Despite the fact that June and July signify summer vacation, I feel guilty if I'm not being productive at the same rate that I am during the school year because my primary job description changes. In June and July, I can focus on my writing, harnessing the full power of my creative energy to use in crafting articles and writing books. But I feel as though my creative clock is ticking. The guilt soundtrack plays mournfully in the back of my mind whenever I sit down to read, watch TV or just chill because I know that during the school year, some of that creative energy will be siphoned off for class planning, which means my well of creative energy sometimes runs dry before I sit down with my characters. So I have to make the most of June and July before they absquatulate, taking with them the longer days and adequate sleep (sort of) that allow me to access my creativity with fewer distractions.

But August? August is the collision of every aspect of my life in one crazy busy, messy month. At least this August. My daughter's summer job is winding down, so we're finally attacking some of the sorting/purging/organizing she's been talking about doing since May. This newer, leaner collection of possessions is counterbalanced (at least temporarily), however, by the acquisition of everything she will need to put her dorm room together--back-to-school shopping with a twist and a much bigger budget. 

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We're taking one last quick family trip this month, too--a couple days in New York to see a Billy Joel concert and wander around Manhattan. Since the goal of August is to find the sweet spot that blends productive writing time with productive class planning and family time, my laptop is making the trip with us. Since I love writing on trains, whether or not it makes it out of the bag will depend on my family's chattiness and connection (or lack thereof) to electronic devices of their own, as well as our ability to nab seats that make writing possible. 

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August also means it's time to get serious about syllabi and adding in all the fun stuff I've been collecting in a big, mostly electronic, pile all summer long. Compiling the links I sent myself all summer was a multi hour process--one that reminded me that I need to be specific in my subject lines from now on to save myself time when I harvest all those cool ideas in August and figure out where to integrate them. Still, this process got me excited about doing old things in new ways and moving my classes closer to the ideal I envision.

All of this--including back-to-school shopping, to a certain extent--is normal August stuff which has so far managed to distract me from the big August event, which is my daughter's departure for college. She finishes work this week and, next week, we have one (last) full week to enjoy each other's company, get in each other's way, finish up all the shopping, start the packing and do all the myriad things that keep popping into my head as the month progresses. I know we're not the first family to do this, or the only family in the process of doing it right now. But it's our first time, and it feels enormous. I've been so focused on the excitement of what lies ahead for her and the mechanics of getting everything together that the reality of this life change has come to me only in small snippets. 

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It's probably better that way. Just as this busy August full of all the usual stuff (and a few surprises) has kept me focused on the big picture, where I am, admittedly, most comfortable, so has it reduced the drama leading up to the final countdown. But now, here we are, and I can feel my bravery crumbling. There aren't enough characters, articles or syllabi in sight to block the view of the bridge my daughter will be crossing. As long as I'm creating one more to-do list, checking off one more set of tasks, purchasing one more necessary item, I can live in the fog beside the bridge, knowing she's going, but not having to face it.

In just two and a half weeks, I'm going to have to face it.

Tichnor Brothers Post Card Collection
Boston Public Library
digitalcommonwealth.org

Awful August

Yesterday, I was checking out the back-to-school sales at Staples. I love school supplies, back-to-school shopping and sales. I ran into a former colleague and had a fun, on-the-fly chat. The day was sunny--hot, but sunny--and it was Sunday, so the whole day was at my disposal. I had few complaints.

Today, it's August 1. MONDAY, August 1.

That hardly seems fair.

Today, it's gray--not raining (yet), but gray--and I felt overbooked before I got out of bed. The meme at left, while perfectly reflecting my feelings, did give me a little chuckle when I found it on a friend's Facebook page. Marilyn's a teacher, too, so she knows that turning the calendar page to August means it's time to get serious. The former colleague I ran into at Staples yesterday knows this, too. She was planning on working on her classroom today.

Though my days of putting together an office at school are behind me, August still means putting things together. These days, it's syllabi and reading lists, Moodles and presentations. None of this is difficult, but all of it means that the great ideas I've been planning in my head (where details don't matter, so it's not a problem if they're not fleshed out) need to be transferred to paper where they'll need to have goals and objectives and be attached to due dates. As a big picture person, I get a stomachache just thinking about it.

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This month is a wake-up call in more ways than one. August means nudging my body back into a sleep schedule that doesn't come naturally. The longer days of summer are perfect for night owls like me who get a second wind sometime around 7PM. During the summer, if I choose to ride that second wind until midnight, there's no alarm clock to fear the next day. During the semester, when I ride the second wind until midnight (as I invariably do), I pay for it the next day, and the sleep deficit grows larger as the week progresses. August means acknowledging that the world operates on a different schedule than I do.

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And this August means a new kind of back to school at our house. In three weeks, we'll be dropping my daughter off at college. She's ready and I'm as ready as I can be, but as the summer winds down, the reality of this departure keeps sneaking up on me and hitting me over the head when I least expect it. Last Friday night, for example, we did some dorm supply shopping, which was fun--until I got home and we began unpacking our purchases and reality hit. Since March, I've been almost unequivocally excited about all the adventures that lie ahead for my daughter, but, now that it's August, equivocation has set in. I'm going to miss her and life is going to be very different.

I still have almost a month to ease into these changes, though. Between now and the end of this month, we'll visit my parents, spend some time as a family in New York City, see Billy Joel in concert and celebrate my birthday. And, because August also means that crisp, cool fall weather is just around the corner, this month I dread will give way to my favorite season of all.

Now that I can get behind.