As of today, my 6-month sabbatical is half over. I want to say that it seems like I’ve barely started, but when I really think over the past 3 months, I know that’s not actually true. It’s just that I don’t want it to end.
The full writeup of the ELIP program is currently undergoing revisions and may actually be published by December, which would be amazing. It’s amazing how much is clarified through the writing process that doesn’t come clear in the analysis or in any other step. I have also mostly completed the conference paper for the Library Assessment Conference in November, and I’m currently trying to coalesce some thoughts around what kind of space the academic library is and how that might reflect on the information literacy program.
I do understand now, though, that the sabbatical is not about outcomes, not primarily. I think I started to understand that when my fingernails kept interfering with my typing in a way that’s never happened before, and I realized that just incidentally they hadn’t been chewed down to nubbins. The space I can hold for creative energy is widening. It’s impossible to quantify the advantages of being free to think about your work and yourself in a new way, in a way that’s ultimately very sad because it will end. And when it does, I will face the task of how to bring this with me. But not before.