I'm supposed to be grading papers . . .

but instead I'm thinking about Christmas shopping, about philosophy, about sunshine in December, about sushi, about next semester's meetings, about former colleagues, and about dinner.  That is, just about everything except the papers.

This is the time of year when I challenge myself with words and images of stillness, of silence and reflection, and I come up short because the list seems, somehow, to keep getting longer.  Tackling the list seems impossible this far out, and so I look up ways to stretch it out some more (especially if it means not grading papers).

I do this in part because I know that the papers are inevitable--as is the time I spend wasting before I actually sit myself in the chair and deal with them.  But I do it also because sometimes there's a flash of brilliance, a really good idea, that comes while I'm busy not doing something I'm supposed to.

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One of my colleagues and I have a lot of conversations in doorways.  We both know we shouldn't.  We should be prepping for class.  We're on our way to meetings.  We should be writing something.  We should be grading papers.

But, this year (after five years of such behavior), we have embraced the doorway conversations--even begun to celebrate them.

We've recognized that in the midst of our rambling chats about students, kids, the papers we're not grading, university goings-on, books we've read or want to read, and food we shouldn't be eating, we have developed important projects that have improved our teaching, our thinking, and our life together as a department and university community.

There's no way to codify our doorway converations; that's precisely the point.

We're not supposed to be having them.

We are supposed to be doing something else.  (Like I'm supposed to be grading papers.)

In the inevitability of the supposed-tos, however, sometimes something else breaks in.  And so I open the door for it.