It is dry here. So dry. By this time of year, we could have expected several serious bouts of rain, and at least a stirring of growth in the brown earth. Instead we get the vaguest of clouds and downpours of thirty seconds that barely darken the sidewalk.
On a walk last weekend in the somnambulant hills, even the asparagus were suspended in barren, bare tangles of thorns. Crossing the vineyard, Ron searched through the dried leaves to glean clusters of raisins, sweet and chewy – more seeds than fruit. They are like the black olives* I cured this year, their desiccated bitter flesh barely covering the pits, which I keep only out of sentiment for the loving attention invested in them.
Yesterday I visited Abu Malek in Kfar Manda. Abu Malek is retired and spends much of his time visiting friends in the village. Some of them, like Abu Ali, are not well and homebound. Abu Ali has diabetes and for months he languished, with no appetite, and I heard periodic reports of cures investigated, here and in Jordan. At this point, Abu Malek told me, his appetite has returned, but there is only one thing he craves – luf.
Luf is that edible wild plant that requires special cooking to neutralize its toxins, and is commonly acknowledged in the Arab communities of the Galilee to have extraordinary medicinal qualities. Luf is one of the first plants to appear with the winter rains – in an ordinary year, my yard would now be full of them.
Abu Ali asked us if we have any luf in the freezer, Abu Malek told me. But a few weeks earlier, Um Malek needed room in the freezer and she took out the old luf she had and tossed it. A pity. At Abbie’s there’s plenty of luf, Um Malek noted. But no rain, no luf.
So we have no choice but to wait. For the rain, for the luf, and for relief from the bone-dryness that has bedeviled countless generations whose livelihood here depended on the benevolent communion of rain, earth and new growth.
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*In fact, the original plan was to cure green olives (see this post) When we got to the trees, however, there was barely a green olive to be found. But plenty of beautiful black ones. Following the signs can lead down a circuitous path…
This is very touching, Abbie. Warmly, Judy (Goldman)
And here, Abbie, in the Tucson area we have been experiencing the first sustained rain of the year! Now almost 24 hours of the steady drum beat of big globs of rain hammering the flat roof over our heads. We anticipate the awakening of the Rillito River with the earth brown run off from the Catalina mountain ringing the northern extension of the city. Hopefully we will see the rain for another 24 hours or longer for inevitably it will stop and the pulverized rock which passes as earth will re-emerge from under the large standing pools which only slowly drain toward the flowing river below us.