My Grandma’s Saffron Poached Pears

Saffron Poached Pears

These are my grandmother’s pears.   The recipe comes  from the quirky handwritten recipe books she left behind.   A dessert so beautiful and so easy to make.  It could never be said that her recipe style tilted to the exotic so its surprising  that she even knew what saffron was.

They don’t really look like they would cause anyone issues do they?

I was reminded of my grandmother’s pears several weeks ago while watching a new season sitcom.   Except for one scene the entire show was unmemorable — as typically so many of the new shows are.   In this scene the main character inadvertently discovers that the copious notes his therapist had been scribing throughout supposed years of therapy were nothing more than nonsensical doodles and scribbles.

On screen much hilarity ensued.     Off screen I didn’t think it was very funny.  It reminded me of the years I spent with my grandmother.  And Dr. Milo.

You see, years ago I was given the unexpected chance to read my former therapist’s session notes.   They were written in the tiniest cursive I had ever seen a man write.  Nearly 3 lines could fit into each line of the regular student notebook paper he used.    This, and his brevity allowed for 4 years of ‘on again off again’ therapy notes to fit on 3 pages of paper.

Despite the risk I might discover something I wouldn’t  like I quickly decided I was curious enough to read them through.     Was reading these even legal?    Despite my trepidation the experience was for the most part was oddly comforting and not at all that surprising.   It was somewhat akin to flipping through a friend’s old photo album and once again enjoying the faces you hadn’t thought of in years — even the faces of those who had once caused you pain.

Then I got to the last very line from of my very last session with Dr. Milo:

“T  – has found steady peace but should always work on his grandmother pears”. 

I never figured out what that meant exactly.

* * *

Dr. Milo died two weeks after he wrote that last entry.   It was my last session not because he had died but rather by my choice and mutual agreement.   Successful “moving on” also meant moving on from him and it was time.  His unexpected death just following my departure, however, was unexpected only to his patients;  it seemed his friends and family knew he had been sick for a very long time.   I remember wondering if wrapping things up at that time was really my idea?

It was some 15 years after that last visit when a big brown envelope arrived in the mail postmarked Ft. Lauderdale , a place I had never been.  The unfamiliar return address written in unsteady handwriting didn’t  yield any clues to its origin.    I could tell something important was inside as a big swath of packing tape was wrapped around its closure to indicate that  its sender could not trust its contents to simple adhesive and saliva.

A slim, tightly sealed #10 envelope made of  dark velum was inside and a small small note written by Dr. Milo’s partner was attached.   I had met him only a few times when bad timing would have us both awkwardly walking into the office space they shared at the same time.  I tried to figure out if he was Dr. Milo’s partner or if he was his “partner”.   It turned out he was both.   Or “both”.

***

I began seeing Dr. M as a 21 year old.  I was living with my grandmother when she had discovered I was gay and then quckly pushed me out of the closet unwillingly and without my knowledge.    My still young lifetime of striving to be invisible had not prepared me for the public display she had thrown me to.   In case you wondered what those dreams people get about being naked in a crowd of people are about —  they are about my twenties.

Not all of the sudden attention was bad. Quite a bit was supportive and loving — but in her case, the microscope she had trained on my every move those years was not only intense but also terribly out of focus.  I was never sure if she had leaned to retrain her sights on ‘me’ instead of ‘it’.

Dr. Milo gave me the tools I needed to work through those years and let go of them.    Or so I thought.

***

Saffron Poached Pears

So there I sat with three sheets of notebook paper crammed with tiniest writing I had ever seen and a magnifying glass.  The note from Dr. Milo’s “partner” explained that he had recently found my file while going through Dr. M’s things and, after reading them through (!),  thought that I would want to read them too.

I did and I did.  Evidently I had neglected one last homework assignment from Dr. Milo:

“T  – has found steady peace but should always work on his grandmother pears”. 

Which is exactly what I did last Sunday after being reminded by a TV program of some unfinished business: