I hear sabbatical calling

Last Friday as I stood before my final class of the semester leading a group of wonderful students in a sparkling discussion of interesting ideas, I paused for a moment and told myself: I will miss this.

My sabbatical starts as soon as I submit final grades so I won't be in a classroom regularly again until next fall. I won't miss reading zillions of student drafts and I definitely won't miss listening to lame excuses, but I get such a buzz out of being in the classroom that it's hard to imagine giving it up, even for a few months.

What else will I miss? It will be difficult to give up high-speed internet access and daily conversation with some wonderful colleagues, but that just gives me a good reason to visit campus occasionally.

I won't miss committee meetings, especially the committee that meets for two hours Friday afternoons. (Who thought that was a great idea?) I won't miss faculty meetings or discussions of general education assessment or massive misunderstandings caused by faulty lines of communication between faculty and administration.

Instead, I'll write. First, though, I need to do some research, and if that research happens to take me to Florida in January--well, that's the price I have to pay for being a scholar. My two-week research trip is shaping up nicely: a trip to the Everglades and the Keys with an old friend, meetings with experts on Florida literature at Rollins College, a visit to special collections at the University of Florida library, side trips to the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings house and the Zora Neale Hurston museum. I may even be in Eatonville for the annual Hurston festival. If that trip doens't give me plenty to write about, then it's time to hang up the Scholar badge and take up welding.

Tomorrow I give finals and then I'll spend the rest of the week grading, but at some point the grades will be submitted and I'll be ready to lock my door and walk away from my office. A little voice inside me keeps saying, "No! Don't go! Your students need you!" But every day that voice gets a little softer, and it won't be long before it gets drowned out by the sound of gulls calling and waves rolling and pages turning, turning, turning. I can see my sabbatical looming on the horizon and soon, to borrow Hurston's lovely words, I'll pull that horizon from the waist of the world and drape it over my shoulders.