Column: A librarian knows when the page has turned . . . on summer

The feel of fall is already in the air.

I’m always surprised at the sudden changeover, though it happens every year.

In late July, the first week of August, we are fully in summer, with temperatures in the 80s. We have a few hot and humid days that end in thunder showers. The weather calls for shorts, sundresses and sleeveless tops.

Then, abruptly, the mercury stops rising at 72. In April, that would be a scorcher. In August, I needed to switch out the capris for pants, the sandals for shoes, by the end of that day.

Fall is a beautiful season, especially in New England. But its arrival is bittersweet, especially in Maine. Our summers are short. We barely have a spring in a good year. This was not one. What should have been spring was wet and chilly.

What followed, I must say, was pretty good. In 2018, I believe there was a whole week of very hot (by which I mean in the 90s) weather in July. This year (so far; because we’ve had heat waves in September before), the worst was a weekend in mid-July.

My husband, Paul, and I were finishing up our vacation on Penobscot Bay that weekend. It was going to be miserable even where we were, only steps from the ocean. Luckily, air conditioning awaited us at home. Considering other stretches of wicked hot weather we’ve had in recent years, this one was bearable.

There were plenty of stretches of sunny, warm days. As I prepared to go back to work as a school librarian, I planned a series of day trips. On two of those days, it rained overnight and was still drizzly and overcast in the morning. Since I only had a few days of vacation left, I vowed to carry on no matter what the weather. I was rewarded by skies that cleared and eventually turned sunny.

When you live by the school year schedule, fall, of course, is a beginning. The excitement of the new makes the end of summer a little more tolerable. Or, at least, it distracts me from dwelling on it.

I felt the need to make a Target run the other day. I had a list, but really I felt I needed to stock up before I got very busy and didn’t have the time to shop.

When I reached the turn-in to the shopping plaza, I noticed five cars ahead of me making a left. They all were going to Target. Light bulb moment. I wasn’t the only one returning to school. The back-to-school ads have been running for so long, I figured everyone was done with their shopping already.

I start a week ahead of the students, as getting school libraries ready for the year entails a lot of work. The best part is opening up the boxes of new books and supplies.

Since I’m a planner, I enjoy starting afresh each August. Although I still can’t get used to starting school before Labor Day. I grew up in Massachusetts, and we always started in September. Old habits die hard.

I like to get out my date book and fill in meetings, special events like Banned Books Week, early release days and vacations. Then I do the same electronically.

I have a list of “start-up tasks,” and it’s satisfying to tick them off once they’re done. I constantly revise the list. This year I realized that I needed to number some of them, as it would be more efficient to do them in a particular order. When you only do certain things once a year, you have to keep track of them in writing or you’re lost.

I was amazed this year that I remembered the three major log-ins and passwords I need to do my job. I have them written down, but I didn’t have to look!

Shutting down and starting up schools takes time. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better if we had school year-round. We’d have the same number of days, but spread out through the year. Maybe we’d have the whole month of July off, for example, and two-week vacations in December and April.

But then I think of how seriously relaxed I felt by mid-July. How rejuvenated I felt by mid-August. How I then felt ready for what the French call the “ré-entrée.”

The long break is beneficial in its way.

So here I am now, back in school. At this moment, I’m sitting at home in a northeast-facing room in the late afternoon. I have to have my desk light on. After dinner, while Paul eats his dessert, I’ll go out on the deck with the dogs, so they won’t drool over his ice cream.

I’ll reflect that I won’t be able to do that much longer. I want to be able to read, and for that I need light. And the light after 6 p.m. is fast disappearing.

It is a bittersweet time of year. I hate to say goodbye to summer. But, as a librarian, I know the page has turned. Fall is coming in.