I need to get this posted before today’s Biden/Harris inauguration. There will be too much noise after it. It’s an anxious morning—I don’t recall ever being worried about an inauguration before. Agog at the spectacle, yes; afraid to watch, no.

From the blissful vantage of not knowing what’s to come, I shall focus on what has passed: the start of the new semester.

Just like students, teachers make new plans and promises to themselves about how this semester will be better than the last. Students tell themselves that they will come to class, do the reading, and turn their papers in on time. Teachers insist they will 

• start the term organized.

• keep up with grading.

• hold students responsible & not take late work.

• schedule a more defined workday.

That last one, the schedule one, relates to all of us—not just teachers. Most of us have been working from home for the last 10 months. Almost an entire year. Even those of us who already worked from home worked even more from home—those client meetings are now on Zoom and that training-thingy (at the hotel somewhere else with food cooked by someone else) likely got canceled. Even when we do “go back” we won’t really go back. Working from/at home is, I believe, a reality for most of us forever. For-e-ver. 

Yesterday, on the first day of the spring semester, I asked my students what they liked and disliked about taking classes from home. They liked the commute. Given that most of them had their cameras off and given that I have an 8 am class, I have a feeling that they liked the commute because they didn’t actually commute—they were Zooming from their beds.

They disliked taking class from home. Ironically, the best thing about remote learning is not having to leave home, and the worst thing about it is not having to leave home.

They are confusing but correct...I think.

I love teaching from home. I love the commute to my 8 am class at 7:55 via coffee in the kitchen. I love my office with its space heater, fairy lights, and faux fireplace. I love that I can burn smelly candles all day and no one complains.

But I hate how much my job has grown, like kudzu, from a lovely detail along the edge of my life into a brick-eating parasite that’s making everything crumble.

I can’t spray weed killer on my job. It’s not fully parasitic. There are mutual benefits. But it doesn’t deserve the time and space it is taking up. New for 2021 and the spring semester, I’m putting some limits on our relationship, job. Job? job. (Rhymes with rob not robe.)

I am implementing a shut-down ritual. 

Cal Newport popularized this term in his 2016 book “Deep Work” which seems to have originated in a 2009 blog post on his website. Full disclosure, I didn’t read the book, just the blog post and linked it here. (Fuller disclosure: I’d like to establish a media empire, create press kits with long and short versions of my bio, launch an eponymous website, and rake in millions of dollars based on a particularly insightful blog post, just sayin’.)

In this post, he discusses how he ends the workday and keeps it from spilling over into the rest-of-his-life day.

1. He updates his master planner task list (paper) and reviews it for pressing issues. Those he moves to his electronic calendar.

2. Next, he reviews his calendar for the next two weeks to remind himself of and confirm deadlines and appointments.

3. Then he considers his weekly schedule and makes adjustments based on what he has gleaned from the first two steps of this process.

4. Finally, he turns off his computer and utters magic words: schedule, shutdown complete.

All of this is a bit too linear and techy-tasky for me. Newport is a computer science professor. I’m a poet and English professor. Let’s burn some dried sage over this ritual and call the last part an incantation, shall we?

What are my magic words?

Mischief Managed

This was the first phrase that popped into my head as I considered this question. I like it. It makes sense. It has alliteration. As Dumbledore says, “Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.” But “mischief managed” is just a bit too...expecto patronum? I kind of saw it coming. And I’m not sure my shut down ritual is really about managing mischief. If my job were really mischievous, I would like it to spill over. I need more magical merrymaking and mischief in my life.

Sardines

If the obvious is too obvious, perhaps the obfuscated would be better? Sardines were mentioned in my presence on three separate occasions as I was working through this blog. First, as I was out walking the dog and thinking about this blog, the play Noises Off came to mind. I saw it ages ago and was doing a bit of research online and remembered Mrs. Clackett’s line about the central importance of following the sardines: “And I take the sardines. No, I leave the sardines. No, I take the sardines.”

Second, as I came in from walking the dog, my husband told me that he has been giving the dog sardines for the last couple of weeks and recently discovered that they are one of the best things a dog can eat.

And third, O’Hara’s poem “Why I am Not a Painter” occurred to me (no idea why) so I went and reread it. The poem explores the lingering presence of inspiration in a painting called “Sardines” which contains no sardines and a poem called “Oranges” which mentions no oranges. They are secret sardines and oranges that make sense only to their creators.

Sardines would be a good way to end the day. Chances are I won’t say it in any other context so it will be clearly associated with the one activity of ending the day. It lends itself to metaphorizing the purpose of the word—to keep the job contained in a little can. It has some positive associations: sardines was my favorite hide-and-seek variant as a kid. But it is just too aromatic and a bit cramped. And, after a few times repeating it, it starts to feel like an expletive or an expression of exhaustion. I see myself closing my computer and saying, “sardines” with a bit of remorse—not because the workday is over, but because there’s another one coming. 

Creamy Coffee

This is actually the phrase I have in red at 4pm in my Google calendar. I programmed it in as a task each day, but I only set it up to last a week rather than a semester. I think I knew it was not right. I often have an afternoon coffee around 3 or 4. I like to add flavored creamer—a little indulgence and a bit of a pick-me-up. But what about those days when I decide against afternoon coffee or some child has used up all the cream in her hot chocolate? Will I be disappointed and therefore just work through my shut down’s empty promise? Will I seek self-punishment in additional grading or milky tea? And let’s not even address the issues of rewarding myself with food…. 

As much as I love an emphatic, one word shut down, I’m thinking a phrase (or rather a clause) is better. I need to corral my day rather than stomp it to a hard stop. I need a string of words like a velvet rope—the exclusive club is closed for now, but I have the password to get back in when I am ready.

I need to make a distinction here between my job and my work. The job is the thing I do to make money. Work is the thing I do to live my life—to have a reason to make that money. Sometimes, if you are lucky, the work and job overlap. It feels good to have a job that speaks to your life’s work, but a bit oppressive to work your life like a job.

My shut down ritual is as much for the job that it closes as for the life’s work that it opens up.

Just before the end of the job-day—4pm as I mentioned in my last blog—I shall light the sage or the palo santo or the smelly candle or perhaps just a match—and

1. Clear my desk of the accumulated papers, coffee cups, books, and brick-a-brack. I’ll dig out my school planner and cross off accomplishments and note down tasks, making lists as needed for the future.

2. Arrange my office for 5am: morning journal with the morning things, the right pens in the right places, files filed away.

3. Close the 347 open tabs on my desktop and turn off my computer.

4. Plug in all the electronics I need each day—phone, iPad, AirPods, computer—to ensure they are charged for tomorrow.

5. Walk away from my desk & speak my incantation.

Let the noisy world grow quiet.

I cribbed those magic words from a longer prayer meant for the end of the day-day, the full day, not just the professional day. I didn’t come to it magically nor do I have a long relationship with it; I Googled it and linked it here. 

At 4pm I give myself an hour of reflective writing time. I think of it as my mini-morning. In this time I write, I read. Perhaps I watch YouTube videos in which I live vicariously through watching others unbox clothing hauls, tour their pen, sticker, and washi tape stashes, or sew meticulous Edwardian garments while verbalizing artful witticisms of a slightly affected but nonetheless amusing nature.

But mostly I just clear out the job so the work can begin. It’s the work I need to do the job. It’s the work I need to be present in the life that is not the job. It’s the work I need to create the fulfillment I work towards.

I’m not pretending that my home life is quiet. There’s actually a lot of yelling involved. I shoulder the blame for contributing to and inspiring much of that yelling. From my constant spot in my office, I’m yelling up the stairs, I’m yelling through the walls. The 12-yr-old yells that I'm a workaholic. The 14-yr-old texts the same. My husband snores it. 

I love my job, but I love my family more.

At the edge of the day, the gargoyles of what I didn’t do or should have done or have to do stand in wait. Let the noisy world grow quiet. On that shallow ledge between afternoon and evening, I rest a book and a cup of coffee.

Because, the day needs something there.