In this edition of The Gift, we share gifts — like a two-tone ring shaped like a pencil and an excellent salad bowl — that ease end-of-summer blues.“I’m not ready for summer to end :(” a friend texted last week. An innocuous text! A relatable text! A text that left me speechless.You see, here in Maine, for 12 weeks and 12 weeks only, the weather strums in perfect harmony with the topography: Hot days pair with cool nights, bracing waters accentuate lofty forests. June hits, and it’s a sprint through lobster shells, beach towels, and pockets loaded with ice cream napkins — straight on through Labor Day. It’s transcendent. It’s singular. And when it’s over, some of us breathe a secret sigh of relief. I am always ready for summer to end :)My longstanding, if unpopular, love for the start of the school year is well documented — and at least partially explained by the privilege of high-gear summers. What’s the perfect antidote to sand, sun, and sugar? Bath, brush, and bed. A regular school night.Presumed fun is a lot of pressure. Found fun? Now you have my attention. We’re not expected to love homework, sharpening pencils, or lugging backpacks. I find joy in rising to that challenge. Each year, as leaves start to singe, my joie de vivre starts to bloom. September is a blank sheet of loose-leaf I look forward to turning.And then, of course, there’s the back-to-school shopping. What other retail event hawks the promise of sheer possibility? The treasures I’ve got my eye on this year pay homage to my favorite kind of starting anew:Perhaps I should honor my lifelong commitment to the school year with this two-tone pencil ring, complete with a nubby little faux eraser. Because it’s open, the sizing is a little more flexible, which is great if you’re giving it to a fellow brown-noser; the cuff is spectacular, too. They’d both make great teacher gifts.Or maybe I just need this little juice glass, which is hand-set with itty-bitty glass pencils. Try to sip seltzer from one and not be productive, I dare you.A friend of mine starts her 19th year of teaching next week and is upgrading her lunch game. “I might bring salads to work more if my container were cute,” she texted. (And there it is: hope!) She settled on this stainless steel salad bowl, which has a removable tray for mix-ins and a sealed dressing container. It also comes in more than a dozen colors; she got a black-and-white floral. I’m wild for the Matisse-y cut-out print.On the topic of lunch: I’m eyeing this hard-shell lunch box, which has a removable cross-body strap and comes in two sizes. I want one for my daughter with the idea that it might be cool enough to transition to middle school in a couple years, too.I’ve also had my eye on these stubby colored pencils, which leave a satisfying mark on paper, transform with water into a pigmented paint, and, in a true act of transgression my eight-year-old would love, also work on glass. Each box also comes with a sharpener, the quickest way I know to feel accomplished.I’ve long admired the bespeckled pattern of a composition notebook, which my design-maven pal recently told me has its origins in ancient marbling techniques. This little guy is like the original’s rich auntie, with its sewn pages and hand-sponged marbled edges. And while the pages are unlined, it comes with a guide sheet to keep writing straight. Imagine the stir I’ll cause at my co-working space, jotting to-dos in this showpiece.I’m likewise tempted to stock up on reporter notebooks to leave in every room in the house (and keep my partner and I from reflexively losing ourselves in our Notes apps).My daughter is currently enamored with the bejeweled hair clips that my dear friend sent her last year. (They look sort of similar to these enameled scissors and glue beauties.) Now they’re an annual first-day tradition.Lastly I’ll leave you with something that I’m sure thrills only me: napkins patterned like notebook paper. Just imagine the possibilities.