Even though I’m a doctor, I thought the stress of pregnancy would end after giving birth. A week later, I was back in the hospital. With blood pressures approaching the danger zone, I was diagnosed with a pregnancy disorder putting women at risk for seizure, stroke, or death. 

Vice President Kamala Harris has remained poised under pressure during an intense campaign, reminding listeners of Donald Trump’s record as president and promising that, if elected, she will work for them. Harris has credited her passion for public service to her mother, the Indian-born cancer scientist Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who frequently told her, “Don’t just sit around and complain …. Do something!”

During ethnographic fieldwork in West Bengal, India, I witnessed the comingling of disgust and desire in shaping religious identity, the effervescent force of crowds, and moments of ordinary ethics enacted through labor.

A week ago, I was fortunate to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. But unlike many colleagues who signed up for a vaccine so quickly that the scheduling system crashed, I paused. It wasn’t just my health at stake. I thought of my four-month-old daughter, whose diet consists of my breastmilk.

It is is June 1, and the mother swan in the Esplanade has passed away. The news arrives in a flash of white on Twitter, where I subscribe to Boston parks: the Arboretum, Fresh Pond, and Charles River Esplanade. The mother died of unknown causes, and one cygnet drowned with her. Her longtime partner, father swan, minds the nest of three surviving cygnets. His name is Atticus.

As a medical resident, I keep a daily tally of what COVID-19 strips away. First was breath—the jagged inhales of infected patients, the limited supply of ventilators, the hiss of oxygen through masks and tubes. Second was blood—congregations of the fateful clots, the throbbing vessels of sepsis. Third was the vigor of the body itself—an extended convalescence, sapped strength, tired muscles. Last, and most strangely, smell. Recently, a Nature study found loss of smell to be the best predictor for COVID-19, rather than symptoms we might expect—fever, cough, shortness of breath.

A man is screaming. He’s pulled out his breathing tube. You want to calm him, to assess his breathing, but you can’t even see him. You are at home. Watching ICU rounds through the unblinking eye of an iPad. On max volume, your headphones pick up all the sounds. Heart monitors beep and screech. Ventilators purr and hum. Twenty different clinicians having twenty different conversations. It’s an orchestral din. An unusual agony.

Rozha waited for me at the entrance to Alipore Judge’s Court, where her lawyers had called her in for the hearing of a case. It was an unusually cool morning for April in Kolkata. Dewdrops lay on unshorn grass, and a duo of mynah birds called over the tangle of telephone wires overhead. In my many years visiting and conducting research in Kolkata, I had never been to court. But at Rozha’s request, I came to support her, and to get a glimpse of the legal rituals endured by so many women seeking justice for the wrongs perpetrated by family members.

WhatI enjoy most about international flights is the minute just before landing.On flights from theUnited States to India, the final minute features daughters who trade tank tops for saris, apply sindoor (the vermilion mark of marriage) to the parting of their hair, and trace kajol around jetlagged eyes. Businesspeople shut laptops bloated with tasks, where all will be forgotten during jampacked weeks with family. Tourists make frenzied circles in guidebooks, unprepared for the colorful chaos awaiting them. As the plane makes its touchdown, the cabin fills with the smell of damp soil after the rain. Every summer, I breathe it in hungrily. “I’m here. I’m home.”