Pickle

October, 13th 2018

Dear Mutsumi,

How are you doing?

Today we had the last day of grape harvesting...

We had a little party at lunch, we were speaking about life and future things to do...

They asked me about if this year I would have gone to Canada or abroad, since for many years I always took a journey after the harvesting. I answered “No, because I have to go to Japan in January for the problem of divorce, I don’t have so much money”. So I friend of mine said to me: “it was better if you never would have gone in Canada, you have had only problems” (At fist glance I was a little astonished but I know that he was trying to be kind because he really thinks that for me it is a burden the situation I am in and he would like to see me serene).

I replied “No, for me it has been the best thing happened to me. Being in Canada, meeting my future wife, discovering new things and tasting what it means love... without all the experiences I had, also the hardest, I couldn’t be the person I am now... And I am happy to be a better person”.

I know that they don’t understand me... They cannot understand what means really the word LOVE... And they cannot understand the big love I have felt for you... and do you? They don’t know all the efforts you made to accept me... I can only try to image, but not fully understand!

In the afternoon the old father of the winery asked me some help to do a typical local food (I am like a part of the family even though I haven’t married their daughter). The sons were too busy to help him and he is starting to be tired, so he asked me and I helped... I had never done it before even though, I knew more or less the process.

After a while, I realized that we were doing a product really similar to daikon pickles. I made the pickles with your father and your mother one time when I was there in Shiozawa. Instead of the remaining of rice production, we used the remaining of grape berries... And the tuber here is usually eaten cooked and not fresh... Clearly, I couldn’t avoid to think about you. All afternoon long...

However I was thinking that sometimes also love should be pickled... Someone can find and have the good ingredients, but it needs to put them in the right sequence, and gives time that it matures... I think that we had the right ingredients but we have done errors in put them together and we couldn’t wait too many times the other.

Take care!

Andrea