Back to the Beginning
When I was young, the best party of the summer was at Dr. Bark’s. He was my dad’s boss, and hosted an annual summer barbeque for laboratory employees at his home on Mission Bay (San Diego). Dad always grilled with Doc, switching out his lab coat for an apron and a chef cap. My parents Coleman cooler was stocked with Coca Cola, which my parents tried to withhold from us, unless, of course, it was a special occasion. This was it. There was something incredibly satisfying about the click of the button on the side of the cooler, which released the latch that served as a barrier between me and the containers of carbonated corn syrup.
We were young, but that day also felt a day where we had complete freedom. It felt like our parents weren’t watching, but I am sure someone was. I remember when dad pointed to a “Warning” sign out in the water and told us if we swam too close to it or beyond, we’d get sucked under water. I couldn’t read the fine print, so I trusted him. I don’t remember his exact words, but it terrified me enough to not swim out too far. And while I wasn’t the most responsible, I was the bossiest kid, who’d yell at anyone tempting their fate (always Brian).
I now know those warning signs were just basic boating safety regulations.
But the best part of the annual lab party was the ice cream bar. As soon as we noticed dinner was cleaned up, we’d run to grab our towels and excitedly await the set up of the dessert table. It was the only time we’d offer help, in an effort to speed things up, only to be shooed away and told to be patient. There was an art to assembling a sundae, which was always a contest of how much ice cream one could fit in to one’s bowl. Sometimes it was more of a physics lesson. To top it off, there was whipped cream, sprinkles, bananas, cherries, and chocolate, strawberry and caramel sauces. Some years we’d even find a bottle of Magic Shell, which offered a delightful crack.
I cruised that same bay just last month with my son and his friends, pointing out the part of the shore and the tiny house where we used to party.
The bay smelled the same: Banana Boat and salt, bonfires and barbeques. It sounded of seagulls and belly laughs, of outboard motors revving and wakes slapping the shore. In the distance I showed Fletch the exact Hobie Cats his sister learned to sail. Next year that will be us.
As I cruised around the bay, I thought about how much that laboratory at Alvarado raised me.
Answering the call
When I saw an opening online at a local hospital lab, I didn’t hesitate to apply. I didn’t know if I still qualified and it’s been a quarter of a century since I worked in one. But I applied anyway and interviewed just before I set out for my annual trip to California.
I’m happy to report I was offered the position, and I accepted. When I tell people about it, their reaction is something close to bemused disbelief.
People in my circles think they know me, but they don’t. They don’t see the amount of research and note-taking I do in my daily life, or that I’m basically the kind of mom who turns every interaction with her children into some form of learning.
I think what people do see from me is that, for the better part of the last decade, I’ve been elbows-deep in community journalism, teaching in adult education, running an accidental bagel business, and helping steer our local arts center through grant cycles and program development. I’ve hosted poetry nights and backyard dye workshops, taught a new generation to sew and how to work with supplies that would otherwise end up in landfills. My life is one patched together by creative work, community, social experiments, and a mild-to-moderate addiction to experiencing and learning everything and anything.
So this move back into the laboratory life surprises most. Even my ex-husband and kids have never known me as someone who worked in laboratory science. That’s because that part of my life predates all of them.
I was pregnant with my daughter - who is now 25 - when I worked in the hospital lab the first time. I worked right up until I delivered her, mostly because the delivery room was literally across the street. I figured if anything happened, they could just wheel me over. It was an efficient plan, really.
Science has always been stitched into my DNA. I’m the daughter of a laboratory director and a nurse. I grew up in a home where casual dinner prep often involved dissecting a heart. My mother would proudly point out the aorta, ventricles, and atria, all while explaining the similarities and differences between avian and human hearts. My dad taught me what an autoclave and a centrifuge were before I learned how to spell “multiplication.”
My brother Brian and I spent much of our early years playing in the front yard, dazzling the cul-de-sac kids with our Mr. Wizard-grade special effects. Our volcanoes, fueled by baking soda and vinegar, erupted with blue lava flows, which our figurines narrowly escaped. And once in a blue moon, we’d score some dry ice, which made us the coolest kids on the block as we sipped on something that looked vaguely haunted in the best possible way.
Brian was four years ahead of me, and naturally, I enlisted his help when I had to memorize the entire periodic table in seventh grade. It made sense that he later majored in chemistry and became a doctor. He taught me this mnemonic:
“Little chemist Brian, now he is no more. For what he thought was H2O was H2SO4.”
I remember laughing so hard when he first said that. It was clever and the kind of rhyme only science kids appreciate. As I write this, I can not help but wonder if the fear of accidental death by sulfuric acid is the reason I can’t drink water. My friends were unimpressed by these jingles, but it taught me how important music and rhythm were for rapid memorization, which has served me and my future HiSET students well.
But playing and having fun isn’t enough. I’m hella competitive sometimes, and I need results. I was the kid who turned a section of our formal dining room into a sterilized lab to run a side-by-side disinfectant trial for my middle school science fair.
To test a variety of disinfectants for my science fair project, I set up my own controls, swabbed tiles, cleaned each section with solutions such as bleach, hydrogen peroxide, ammonia - including brands like 409, Lysol, and Ajax - then re-swabbed and plated everything in Petri dishes. I incubated the samples, quite proudly, at my dad’s hospital lab. I wore goggles and gloves and a very cool white coat. I scribbled my findings on a clipboard and shared my findings any time I spotted someone cleaning. I still do.
With that project, I took first place. It was one of my only middle school awards. Despite popular belief, I was an underperforming student who hyper-focused on certain things. Projects. Always the projects. Especially ones with a degree of experimentation and observation.
Eventually, all of this experience, paired with a little formal training, landed me a job in the laboratory at Kaiser. I took my first hospital lab position at 20. There, I learned fun words like aliquoting. I learned that I liked spinning blood and not being grossed out by it. I liked plating urine and the satisfying little click of the inoculation tool against the agar. Lab work is precise and repetitive in the best way. Much like quilting or bagel-making.
Middle school was the golden age of pairing science and art. Mrs. Ellsworth, my science teacher, made us draw every cell, bone, and body system by hand and label it with the flair of a botanical illustrator moonlighting as a Victorian-era calligrapher. She taught us that precision and beauty weren’t opposites but partners. She also enforced immaculate penmanship, which is why I still feel compelled to write notes on spiral-bound paper, Bic pen in hand, with a highlighter and colored pencils nearby, just in case.
I loved dissection days - not because I’m morbid, but because I loved the precision of the work. That same sensibility found its way into my creative practice. Baking, dyeing, and quilting all require attention to detail. You can’t make good bagels without understanding hydration, temperature, and time. Eco-dyeing doesn’t work unless you understand mordants and chemical reactions. The best quilts aren’t just thrown together; they’re engineered.
So no, I’m not abandoning my creative life for the lab. I’m investing in it. I’m also giving it structure. Predictability. Health insurance. A retirement plan. I’ll still bake, but inconsistently by popping up in meadows and on downtown sidewalks with my besties.
I’ll still write, but I’ll also be wearing a lab coat again, drawing blood, plating specimens with quiet satisfaction, and listening to heart monitors beep like a metronome guiding me back to something I didn’t even know I’d missed.
This decision feels right. Which is weird, because very little ever does.
Sarah Scull is a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, a statewide network of journalists, authors, poets, and musicians. Based in Creston, Iowa, Sarah is the writer behind The Piecemaker, where she shares her musings as a West Coast transplant, mother, and Midwest maker.
Well done! Hope we meet at some point! Deirdre Baker 🌺
Excellent writing, Sarah!! And yep I would not have guessed this about you, (but maybe just because when we crossed paths, and discovered our overlaps, we didn't go back further than 20 years). I'm kind of in awe of your multi-layered-ness! Congrats on the new role.