Any Undivided Attention Given is a Form of Prayer

I catch a lot of (honestly well-intentioned) hell around here--and by around here, I mean at the lunch table--for my unwillingness to give up my lab work during the semester. Although I sometimes may complain about having to physically go to my lab, I enjoy being there. And it's not just because of the people [although the people are a big bonus]. I like going there because I like feeling a personal connection to my work--I like knowing what's going on. Hell--I even like not knowing what's going on, as long as I am being proactive in figuring it out.

It makes perfect sense to me that, amidst this constant clusterfuck of new information that I can't learn in any depth, that I don't--as Joe puts it--have any real connection to, I would want to be in a place where I do understand what is going on, where I do have some ownership of the process and even of the space.

But it goes beyond that, and far into the recesses of nerddom.

Honestly, I love the peace of the lab, of mixing buffers and changing settings on the instruments. There are few places here--and probably on earth--where my mind is clearer than here. It has been said, by me even, that I am a mess--but lab is the only place where I don't feel that way. I am so careful in lab, washing my glassware, filling the MilliQ water, injecting samples and cleaning my syringe. I am a fastidious mopper of water and chemicals, and my lab space is much cleaner and organized than my bedroom will ever be.

I love surveying the space of my tabletop, seeing the shelves of chemicals and buffers that belong to me, that I have made. I love seeing my handwriting on labels and remembering the hours poured, seriously lovingly, into making them. I love finding the right size of screwdriver or allen wrench, and I love using those tools to dismantle and reassemble my HPLC. I've spend two summers in this lab, and I look forward to spending the parts and wholes of six more years here. I find it comforting.

As much of a hassle as it can be, I also love going to anatomy lab. The joy there is different--I like my lab group, and I find the subject, honestly, more fascinating than frustrating. I love connecting what I "learn" in lectures to real humanity, but most of all, I love the look on the professors' faces when they survey the bodies before them, place their hands inside, and start looking for structures. I feel a beautiful sort of connection with them as they survey their lives' work, smiling as if they've found home.