The Apricot

Both sides of my family raised cherries, prunes, and apricots in California’s Santa Clara Valley right up until the electronics boom began in the early ’60’s, so when I was introduced to the cottage in Via della Pertiche, and to the apricot tree in its yard, it was like coming home. Childhood July’s were spent cutting “cots” at the Lopin “ranch”; fifty cents to fill a three-by-six foot wooden drying tray, surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins who were raking in the cash through exercise of the same skill. My grandmother cooked elaborate lunches, and plied us with fresh lemonade which the afternoon heat turned into ambrosia. July was my favorite month.

I don’t remember when that July tradition began to wane. Looking at it from this perspective, it should have continued into the morning that the “ranch” was sold. Maybe it did. Or maybe by the time I was into my twenties the July gatherings had lost their glow for me, had become passe. Or perhaps my uncle, who did all the heavy lifting, had grown weary and hired day laborers.

I know that after my grandmother died, there were a few years of awkwardness as the ten acres were divided between the three brothers. The will my grandmother left behind was old school, probably drawn up according to her husband’s wishes who predeceased her by ten years, so the two sisters (my mother being one) received a bit of cash, but no land. By the early seventies some of the property had been sold, and the remainder was taxed at residential or commercial rates, so it didn’t pay to grow fruit anymore.

The apricot, however, still holds a special place in my heart, and even though I had never been fully initiated into the mysteries of its cultivation, elements couldn’t help but be absorbed. In 1980, I bought a small house in Santa Cruz with an apricot tree in the back yard. In fact, the small yard was only the apricot and a slab of concrete. It’s a miracle the tree survived.

My first February in residence, Dad saw fit to pass on the particulars of pruning an apricot: trim fruit-bearing branches back to just beyond the third lateral bud, remove suckers wherever they appear, trim new growth off the trunk and principal branches, cut outliers so as to shape a well-balanced tree that fits within an imaginary sphere, its center just above the crotch, that is, where the trunk forms a “y”.

As soon as I looked at the giant apricot in my yard on Via delle Pertiche, I knew it needed a serious pruning; it had been years, and the only one of Dad’s rules that might possibly apply would be the last. All my neighbors agreed, and starting last April, reminded me with astonishing regularity. “In February,” I always replied. “Oh, yes February is best. But don’t forget!” Forget? Between the scandal the tree had caused the neighborhood and memories of Dad counting out to the third lateral bud with assurances that a good tree, regularly pruned, would experience only mild fluctuations in crop size, year to year, there was no way I was going to forget. In fact, I began planning the operation in August. By January, pruning the apricot had become an obsession.

February arrived wet. Given that at least half the tree had to be approached with the ladder sitting on soft soil, I deemed it best to wait for drier weather. Then, starting the 9th, a week of rainless, relatively warm days was predicted. I sent an SMS to my neighbor Renzo to ask if I could borrow his extension/a-frame combo ladder. He was hauling it over before I could open the gate. I gathered my tools and contemplated the structure of the tree: how best to approach branches, what parts would support the ladder, and in which mode, where to begin. Countries have been conquered with less forethought.

“So, what are you using for a saw,” Renzo asked. I proudly showed him my little pruning saw with the red plastic handle. He agreed that it was a good saw, but his eyebrows involuntarily raised. The skepticism registered.

I began after lunch. Using my extendible handle pruning sheers, I thinned out the first few branches, and threw the cuttings into a corner. When most of the small branches were down, I climbed with my pruning saw and went to work on the larger. Five hours later, I had done about a quarter of the tree, I was exhausted, and a room-sized pile of branches stood ready to be sorted into firewood. I examined the rest of the tree. The remaining branches would be harder to reach, they were thicker, and there were at least twenty of them. This called for a visit to Frangelico at the ferramenta (hardware). His brother, Raffaello, had suggested back in October that if I needed one, I could rent a chainsaw. That suddenly sounded like a great idea.

But reaching some of the branches was going to be a stretch. Hefting a gas powered chainsaw, even a small one, with one hand, while precariously balanced on an aluminum ladder didn’t thrill me much. So, I asked Frangelico if he had an electric saw for rent. He did not, but offered to do the job himself a week from Sunday; that would have been February 19th. I thanked him, but with reservations.

What I remembered about why you pruned in February – the rule for California, and therefore applicable to Umbria – is that it falls at the very beginning of the budding process. Too early, the wounds won’t heal quickly and that exposes the tree to disease. Too late, the tree will be confused and not put energy into developing new branches, or at least not as effectively. So that extra week made me nervous.

Online research revealed that an electric chainsaw – lightweight, and of adequate size and power – could be had for a reasonable price, and would be delivered by Wednesday. It was going to take a couple of days to sort wood anyway, and Wednesday was five days earlier than Frangelico would have been able to start, so I ordered it. “What would you think of a chainsaw,” Renzo asked from his balcony a few minutes later. I told him about my order. “I have a little gas one you can borrow, but it’s always flooding, so probably you’re better off sticking with your electric.” I felt reassured.

The saw arrived a day early, so I visited Frangelico for an extension cord and oil, assembled the machine, and began the pruning of the apricot with great and private ceremony on Wednesday after lunch. To allow the new saw to become familiar before I took it up a ladder, I began by sorting the pile of trimmings in the corner. It took all afternoon.

On Thursday, I gazed skyward and plotted the cuts. Progress was much faster in the twenty-first century than it had been a week before in the fifteenth, and I was able to take down all but three of the major branches by five-thirty. “Buona sera!” I heard from over the wall; Renzo returning home from work. I opened the gate. He approved of my progress. I asked for his advice on the remaining branches, the most difficult to reach. “I’ll do them.” Why? “I’m taller?” We’re about the same height. “I’ll do them, anyway.”

He put down his groceries, peeled off his jacket, planted the ladder with no thought at all, grabbed the saw and was into the tree like a monkey in a matter of seconds, wielding the motosega like a butter knife. Branches fell in perfect order. I gawked, amazed. Ten minutes later he was on the ground again. As I dragged felled wood towards the already enormous piles, he explained; “I used to cut trees for lumber, trees this big,” he gestured a trunk the diameter of a large garbage can. “It was like climbing back onto a saddle just now. Thanks for letting me do it.”

Yesterday, I got through a third of the pile, sorting it into twigs for tinder, small branches for kindling, and logs. The picture attached shows the yard at the end of that day’s work and only half the pile is visible. Today, I got the invisible half sorted, and tomorrow, I’ll be able to finish so the garden can gradually be put back into shape for spring. It’s hard work, lovely work, and as I grow older, physically easier work – which makes no conventional sense, but I’ll take it.

I’ll miss the apricots this summer – if, after such a radical pruning there are any at all – because I have to return to the States for a new visa, but summer after that there is sure to be a good crop. Maybe even enough to cut and can or dry; just for the sheer heck of it. Fifty-cents a tray, anyone?

Heart Speak

“The doctor doesn’t speak English,” the secretary at the policlinico warned me in very good English. “I speak some Italian,” I told her in especially bad Italian. It was early in the day, those were the first words I’d spoken to another person. Thus it is, always. My mouth and brain are not ready for speech for the first hour or so after waking. It is possible, though how likely I do not know, that the same mish-mash would have erupted from my mouth in English.

I had been to see the doctor the secretary referred to in November when my face suddenly broke out in a bacterial rash. It was ugly and sudden and spread like fire. He recommended the same ointment I had coincidentally brought with me from the States, the one I used the last time such a rash occurred, seven or eight years ago. I went to my farmacia for a fresh tube in case what I had was expired. The lady there was familiar with the brand, but had none in stock. She checked to see when it would arrive on order. “None available in Italy until March,” she told me. “You’d better go right now to all the other pharmacies, see if one of them still has it.” I had no difficulty understanding her; urgency is a elegant translator.

Anyway, as I was instructed to do by the immigration interceder, Alessandro, last March, I bought my way into the National Health System for 2017 in early January (for about $150 – because I am here on a student visa, it’s not free). To do that, I had to specify a doctor, and since the fellow I’d gone to at the policlinico was the only physician I knew, I specified him.

Last July, my doctor in Scranton suggested I have a blood test in January, so once I was in the system, I walked down to the policlinco for an appointment. That’s when the secretary warned me about language issues. She had a slot open for the next day. It’s always like that, and it always surprises me; I go almost anywhere for an appointment, and there is invariably something available within twenty-four hours. Advantages of a small town? Must be.

My doctor is reputed to be very good, he’s kind and courteous, and he speaks no English. Why should that be a problem? I know enough Italian to get by, even though I lack a medical vocabulary. The issue, however, quickly became apparent; he mumbles. And possibly has an accent. “Mumble” may not be fair. How am I to know what mumbling sounds like in Italian? But whatever the reason, I could understand almost nothing. When that happens, I can speak almost nothing. So, we got off to a great start.

“I registered with National Health,” I told him right away, before he had mumbled anything to render me mute, “and was told I should make an appointment for a physical.” He blinked as if I’d just spoken Chinese. I don’t think it was my words, I think it was that we were operating on parallel assumptions about what “a physical” meant, or perhaps how Sanitaria works. He mumbled something. I pretended to understand based on two words I thought maybe I had recognized. “At any rate, my doctor in the US said I should have a blood test in January.” That he understood, and he told me how to proceed. His explanations included references to several places identified by initials. My confusion worsened. He called the secretary.

While waiting, I also asked for prescriptions for the three medicines I am obliged to take thanks to genetics. When you have a prescription, medicine here is free, and even though at full cost all mine together run at about 30% of what I pay in the States (with insurance), free is free.

The secretary arrived. I explained, in Italian, that I was trying to determine where the initialed offices the doctor was talking about, were. She translated into an Italian the doctor could understand, and told me his response in English. The conversation continued in this odd way for awhile. At some point I mentioned again (I forget in which language) that I had registered for National Health the week before. The doctor raised his brow, looked in his records, discovered my name, and threw the prescriptions he had written away; since I was registered, all that could be done electronically.

Eventually satisfied that she had accomplished what was needed, the secretary left, and I was back to relying on speculation. The doctor asked something like was there was anything else I required. He had explained how to pay and make an appointment for my blood work, and that I should ask his secretary for the printout I would take with me to assure the proper tests were made. So, I told him all was well, and returned to the front desk to fetch my various bits of paper.

Lacking among them, however, were my prescriptions. The secretary sighed and called the doctor who named one of the three. When, after the lone prescription had been printed, I noted that I was still missing two, she sighed again. Counting in my mind the pills remaining at home, I responded that the other two could wait until the appointment I would presumably have when the test results came in.

Today, I went for blood work. The ladies who handle paperwork and payments are cheerful, funny, and an utter delight. When I stumble my way through a sentence that wants words I would be hard-pressed to remember in English, let alone Italian, they laugh with great exclamations of feigned emergency, and everyone waiting their turn laughs, too.

The nurse who drew blood was a recipient of my early-morning Italian, as well, so attempted to answer my opening sentence in English. It was charming, as her English is worse than my even my groggy Italian. I vocally appreciated her effort. We locked hearts and proceeded in a terrible mix of whatever language seemed useful. She painlessly drew blood. I complimented her on that. She smiled. We laughed a goodbye.

In all of this, there are several lessons. That more needs translation than words, is one of them. I never did have what I would properly consider a physical, for instance. Maybe that will come when we look at the results of the blood work. I’ll inquire. Any one of several friends will be able to fill me in – if I remember to ask. Another lesson is that I am more annoying when I pretend to decipher mumbling than when I repeatedly ask for clarity. The purpose of language is not to seem to have communicated, the purpose is actually to have communicated. Anything less is a genre of rude. Finally, the heart speaks more clearly than the mouth. Put your heart forward for both listening and speaking, and the words fall into proper alignment. That’s a lesson that can be carried into the world at large, no matter what the cultural context. Grazie.