Field Season. Again.

It's that time of year again.

The Rocket Scientist left this morning for the Arctic Circle.  Because of an inter-agency dispute that went to high levels of government in Washington, there was a delay in shipping materiel up to camp, which meant a corresponding delay in his departure for the field.

There was one nice side effect: he was home, if only for a very few hours, on his actual birthday.  This has not happened since the Red-Headed Menace was a year old, thirteen years ago.  The field season has become an annual rite in our family, as inevitable as tax day and, as far as I'm concerned, about as welcome.

Summers are always unpleasant for me.  This does not help.  It is easier now, though: when my sons were young, it was much rougher.

I miss him, of course, but it is more than that.  It is hard to spend two weeks trying not to be afraid.  I am not necessarily a coward, but when it comes to field season I worry.  A lot.

The things I worry about are many and various: from the remote -- polar bears -- to the much more realistic: a small plane crash into the Arctic ocean.  I worry he won't be able to get his project done.  But mostly these days I worry about appendicitis.  Well, not appendicitis per se, but any sort of medical emergency which lies beyond the limited supplies at camp.

Devon Island is remote.  If a serious medical emergency occurs, it takes 12 to 24 hours get to a hospital.  That's if the weather cooperates.  Last year, part of the team was six days late getting to camp because the weather was bad enough they could not fly in.

I try not to think about this.  There are steps I take: I don't watch Deadliest Catch (do you know you can only live about 10 minutes in water as cold as the Arctic Ocean?), I don't listen to certain songs ("Brown-Eyed Girl" (his song for me) and this year my favorite new song from Great Big Sea "Safe Upon the Shore."  I avoid pictures of icebergs (even though there are none anywhere near where he will be) and polar bears.

All of this is superstition, I know.  What will happen, will happen.  I trust him to take every precaution to come home safely.

He is not a cop, a soldier, or a fireman.  Those people face danger everyday, and their families must have to live at some level, even low, with fear for their loved ones and put it out of their minds and get on with their lives.  The least I can do is follow their example.

And I would never want him to stay home.  Field season matters a great deal to him.  The work drives him.  He is by nature an explorer, a scientist.  In very many ways, this is the best time of the year for him, even given the stress of preparation and the long hours and cold weather and the worry about the project -- whatever project it is this year -- and being away from the family.

I would never want to change this part of who he is.

Oh, well. I am sure he will come home safely.  And next year he will go to Devon again. And then, from Thanksgiving to New Year's, he will be in the Antarctic.

Oh, joy.