Today I bought pears here in Wadena to begin my residence
as a visiting writer. My host, Kent Sheer, had driven me to the
Wadena True Value, where he had tried to entice me to buy
“our” (a.k.a., Central Minnesota’s) turkey and wild rice
sausage, but I would have none of gizzards and grain.
Instead, I headed off for the fruit section. Coming from a tree
whose genus is Pyrus communis, a pear or two was what I, a
new arrival, had to have. I don’t know the many varieties of
this fruit and can only conjure a few names: Anjou, Bartlett,
Seckel; that’s pretty much it. The three I bought were a
speckled yellow brown, silting into a fading green, a muted
blend that I hoped was carrying my pear closer toward
ripeness.
I’m not a good judge of a pear’s freshness; they’re hardly as
simple as apples, which if they’re firm, you pick one up and
bite in. The solidity and shape of pears, though, don’t give
them the lightness and evenly distributed weight of apples.
Pears are compact and hard, hard as rocks, actually, dense
and grave with specific gravity. I tried to pick up some that
gave a bit of give, but this supposed tenderness was likely my
imagination, for when I tentatively bit into one at home, it
was…hard as rocks. I let the second selection sleep on its side
undisturbed for two more days and then sliced into it the way
my father did—part of his politesse with fruit, cutting, not
biting. He’d bring me six even sections on a plate when I was
a teen in the living room reading. This one was excellent.
My dad loved a bit of fruit, savored the juices, the entire
activity of preparing, serving, and eating, offices hinting at the
sensuousness behind his solid, upstanding Republican affect,
one fundamentally jolly and good-natured, and which I seem
to have largely inherited, along with a jigger’s worth of my
mother’s madness. Pears, cherries, red grapes, and peaches,
the runny fruits were his favorites; and was it this physicality
my mother desired to avoid by going to bed later than he?
Perhaps the juniper in gin may be considered fruit, for, as
Spenser tells us, “Sweet is the Iunipere.” My mother would
stay on in the living room reading, as my father would head
upstairs, his hand lightly gracing the polished mahogany
banister. Certainly I possess his taste-in-touch.
When he was in his seventies and living alone in too large a
house, I would bring him cherries, Bings, and I would always
laugh at his standing joke about Crosby not fitting into the
bag. And when we would shop together, he would buy pears,
which he could hardly see but knew well by hand through his
delicate, tapering papery fingers.
I buy a few pears whenever I’m away somewhere writing, like
now, where my studio is in the town’s assisted living center,
The Pines, and which is filled with a number of widowers like
my dad once was. I have a shyness about buying them and
linger before their open baskets, never quite able to
remember what I succeeded with last time. Since I like both
the idea of pear-ness and something of the thing itself, too, I
just choose a color, usually red or yellow, the color of maple
leaves in the fall. I handle each one carefully, though I learn
little from doing this. Each day here, I’ll check them with my
right hand, which directs my most responsive fingers, and
gently test the taut middle, one pear always lost in the trial
for ripeness. The second is usually perfection a day or two
later, desire finally grafted onto that Ding-an-sich. Its swelling
side makes way for my father’s pen knife, his still-sharp blade
easing through the slightly grainy flesh, making thin, even
slices, leaving a square core behind. I eat those gleaming
pieces slowly, wetting my fingers.
At home, my wife, Leslie, who wants to give me all things, will
sometimes buy me pears knowing that they mean something--
what some people, perhaps the French, like to call the
presence of absence. Knowing the nurturing lore of her
grandparents’ Maryland farm, she puts them in a paper bag,
sure that this is how they will ripen. And they do.
as a visiting writer. My host, Kent Sheer, had driven me to the
Wadena True Value, where he had tried to entice me to buy
“our” (a.k.a., Central Minnesota’s) turkey and wild rice
sausage, but I would have none of gizzards and grain.
Instead, I headed off for the fruit section. Coming from a tree
whose genus is Pyrus communis, a pear or two was what I, a
new arrival, had to have. I don’t know the many varieties of
this fruit and can only conjure a few names: Anjou, Bartlett,
Seckel; that’s pretty much it. The three I bought were a
speckled yellow brown, silting into a fading green, a muted
blend that I hoped was carrying my pear closer toward
ripeness.
I’m not a good judge of a pear’s freshness; they’re hardly as
simple as apples, which if they’re firm, you pick one up and
bite in. The solidity and shape of pears, though, don’t give
them the lightness and evenly distributed weight of apples.
Pears are compact and hard, hard as rocks, actually, dense
and grave with specific gravity. I tried to pick up some that
gave a bit of give, but this supposed tenderness was likely my
imagination, for when I tentatively bit into one at home, it
was…hard as rocks. I let the second selection sleep on its side
undisturbed for two more days and then sliced into it the way
my father did—part of his politesse with fruit, cutting, not
biting. He’d bring me six even sections on a plate when I was
a teen in the living room reading. This one was excellent.
My dad loved a bit of fruit, savored the juices, the entire
activity of preparing, serving, and eating, offices hinting at the
sensuousness behind his solid, upstanding Republican affect,
one fundamentally jolly and good-natured, and which I seem
to have largely inherited, along with a jigger’s worth of my
mother’s madness. Pears, cherries, red grapes, and peaches,
the runny fruits were his favorites; and was it this physicality
my mother desired to avoid by going to bed later than he?
Perhaps the juniper in gin may be considered fruit, for, as
Spenser tells us, “Sweet is the Iunipere.” My mother would
stay on in the living room reading, as my father would head
upstairs, his hand lightly gracing the polished mahogany
banister. Certainly I possess his taste-in-touch.
When he was in his seventies and living alone in too large a
house, I would bring him cherries, Bings, and I would always
laugh at his standing joke about Crosby not fitting into the
bag. And when we would shop together, he would buy pears,
which he could hardly see but knew well by hand through his
delicate, tapering papery fingers.
I buy a few pears whenever I’m away somewhere writing, like
now, where my studio is in the town’s assisted living center,
The Pines, and which is filled with a number of widowers like
my dad once was. I have a shyness about buying them and
linger before their open baskets, never quite able to
remember what I succeeded with last time. Since I like both
the idea of pear-ness and something of the thing itself, too, I
just choose a color, usually red or yellow, the color of maple
leaves in the fall. I handle each one carefully, though I learn
little from doing this. Each day here, I’ll check them with my
right hand, which directs my most responsive fingers, and
gently test the taut middle, one pear always lost in the trial
for ripeness. The second is usually perfection a day or two
later, desire finally grafted onto that Ding-an-sich. Its swelling
side makes way for my father’s pen knife, his still-sharp blade
easing through the slightly grainy flesh, making thin, even
slices, leaving a square core behind. I eat those gleaming
pieces slowly, wetting my fingers.
At home, my wife, Leslie, who wants to give me all things, will
sometimes buy me pears knowing that they mean something--
what some people, perhaps the French, like to call the
presence of absence. Knowing the nurturing lore of her
grandparents’ Maryland farm, she puts them in a paper bag,
sure that this is how they will ripen. And they do.
Pears by Reamy Jansen
photo by
Dave Milnes
Dave Milnes