A Good Time to Prepare

 A crisp morning still carries a hint of coolness typical of the season.
The fresh green of the mountains is dazzling to the eyes.

 

A morning like this still holds a trace of cool air, just as this season should.
The fresh green of the mountains is almost dazzling.

This mild weather will likely continue until the Golden Week holidays in May.
At least, I hope so—though with the recent extremes in climate, nothing feels certain anymore.

Last week, I completed the submission of an abstract for a conference scheduled this autumn, and I feel a quiet sense of relief.
Whether it will be accepted is another matter, but I will deal with that when the time comes.
It is not as though anything is lost either way.

There are moments when the workload eases like this.
At such times, I can turn to projects that require a longer span of attention.
In that sense, this is a good time to prepare.

In any business, people prepare their goods in advance for the busy season.
Without such preparation, one cannot make the most of that time.
An eel restaurant prepares for Doyo no Ushi no Hi a year ahead, and soba shops make arrangements well in advance for New Year’s Eve.
That is how things usually work.

But for doctors, everything depends on the presence of patients.

If no one falls ill or gets injured, doctors are not needed.
And yet, that is not how reality works.
We do not wish for people to become unwell, but in the end, that is what brings us work.
It is a strange kind of causality.

These are needs that arise inevitably, so there is no reason to think poorly of it.
Still, at times, it leads to a somewhat unsettling line of thought.
Ideally, there should be no such thing as a “busy season” for doctors, yet disasters, accidents, and outbreaks of infectious disease can create exactly that situation.

Be that as it may, I have a little room in my schedule for now.
I would like to use this time to prepare quietly for whatever may come.

 

Perhaps this quiet will not last, but for now, it is enough.