Hospitality

One morning as I was riding by on my bicycle, Lee and Margaret called to me and invited me in for a tour of their new house. Lee works in Los Angeles but his family has had a place at the ranch for many years, and he's looking forward to retiring here. He recently married Margaret, who is friendly and pretty and happens to be Chinese. I hope someday to take walks with her, though she still worries a bit about mountain lions.I had been watching the progress of their house from the outside for a long time, and I was happy to get off my bike and see the interior.

I entered a spacious front room. “Ah, this is the room of the welcoming embrace!” I exclaimed.

“No,” said Lee, “this is where our guests will sit drinking tequila.”

Next I walked over to a sheltering corner overlooking a panorama of hills and sky. “And this is where you’ll stand feeling humble and grateful," I suggested, "it will be a sort of shrine.”

“Not really,” said Lee, “this is where the bar is gonna be.”

Then I noticed an arched doorway that led to an open patio and all you could see from that angle was the blue of the sky.

“Ah,” I sighed, “and this must be the doorway to the sky.”

“Okay," said Lee.

Margaret motioned to me from the kitchen. “I have something for you,” she announced.

She took an Asian pear from the refrigerator, carefully rinsed and wiped it clean, and then handed it to me with something resembling pride.

“Taste this,” she said.

I stood before the window and looked out at the hills, knowing I was about to have one of those moments. A pinto mare grazed peacefully by the barn. A red tail hawk dipped and soared in the currents of sky.

I bit into the pear – it was unexpectedly crisp and cold, more like an apple, but pear-like in flavor, juicy and delicious.

“It’s called ‘fragrant pear’,” said Margaret, “It came all the way from China...”