It took me forever to learn to waterski. My high school boyfriend’s family had a boat and one summer we’d finish our summer jobs at 5:00 and join a group of friends to drive to Canyon Lake. There, since very few people were on the lake, we would take advantage of the long days and smooth water. That was the summer I finally got up on my skis and stayed up, for a little while anyway.

I started my first ‘real’ job on June 1 several years later. I spent the first weeks studying for the bar exam, but after I was done with that, I could enjoy what was left of summer. The campus chaplain and his family had a small cabin on a nearby lake and one weekend, they had an end-of-summer party for many of their colleagues, and we went water skiing. I got up first time. But the lake was smallish, somewhat crowded and when he made a tight turn, I wiped out. Spectacularly. As I came up sputtering, one of my skis zipped across the water and hit me in the cheekbone. That’s why I had a black eye when I welcomed the new class of students a week later. I think that was the last time I water-skied.

A memorable summer in many ways, but the important part of that first summer was something my new boss said to me. “The summer will be very quiet. Take time for yourself these few months. Don’t worry, you’ll earn the time during the academic year.”

Obviously, this was a private university, but the message still applies. Colleges and public schools aren’t the only workplaces that have busy times and quiet times. When the quiet time arrives, revel in it. That may include getting caught up or spending time on creative projects. But even if you don’t have a downtime in the summer, the days are longer (in the northern hemisphere). Enjoy them. Even if you live in my part of the world where summer can be deadly hot, the long evenings and early mornings have their own charm. Enjoy them.

I’m planning to take my own advice this summer and change the rhythm of this newsletter. This summer it will be an occasional newsletter rather than a weekly one. I’ll still share some Book Notes on Substack if you’re interested, but otherwise, I’m going to (using the vernacular of True Colors) be a bit more Orange (freeform) and less Gold (highly scheduled). https://www.truecolorsintl.com/  Who knows what it will look like, but just the idea feels fun and summery.

I’ll still be writing, but this will open more time for me to make progress on the memoir I’ve been working on. Tentatively called, Work Worth Doing: A Life in Higher Education, I’m trying to finish it this summer and look for an agent/publisher before too much longer.

Here’s to fun summer months, a bit of a breather for all of us, because we will need all our energy in the coming months!

Happy Summer!

Gage

Quote of the Week

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”

John Lubbock
“John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury (30 April 1834 – 28 May 1913), known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet, from 1865 until 1900, was an English banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath. Lubbock worked in his family company as a banker but made significant contributions in archaeology, ethnography, and several branches of biology. He coined the terms “Palaeolithic” and “Neolithic” to denote the Old and New Stone Ages, respectively. He helped establish archaeology as a scientific discipline, and was influential in debates concerning evolutionary theory. He introduced the first law for the protection of the UK’s archaeological and architectural heritage. He promoted the establishment of public libraries ….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Club