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Repetition June 8, 2015

May 24, 2015

A question that is always asked in the weeks before I leave for the field is “Are you excited?” After several tries, I’ve settled on a satisfactory answer: “I will be when I get there and don’t have to go anywhere for twelve weeks.” Packing for a field season is always a mixture of mind-numbing meticulousness and last-minute rushing. Doing this for the third time, the details have become rote: count out pen needles and glucometer strips thus, put over six hundred vials in a box like so. As I sat on my bedroom floor stacking vials into a cardboard box the same dimensions as the one I used last year and the year before, I realized that there is even a particular person I call while I do this. She can be relied upon to keep me entertained.

Unfortunately, I have not gotten used to the last-minute rushing, probably because it’s always caused by something different. This time, it was a smashed bottle of insulin, last year it was a misplaced gadget. I’ve decided that putting together an exhaustively itemized inventory would be worth the effort, but that can only prevent some problems. It can’t forestall a second’s fumble and the intersection of a glass vial and a ceramic tile floor.