“What’s that tree?”

“That? Oh, it’s a Leopard Tree. Well, that’s not its name in Italian, but it translates that way,” I lied. I worked as a tour guide in Italy for five years and in all that time I never could understand my tour members’ fascination with horticulture when there was so much history, culture, architecture, food and wine to soak in. The shrubs? Bah. Who cares.

So when I told my travel companions that the spotted tree was a Leopard Tree and that the forests were filled with alberi di Marioso (Mario trees—named after my bus driver), I didn’t do so out of menace, but simply indifference. My brain was as full as a Roman metro with historical facts I’d memorized to make their trips more interesting. I had no more space up there for foliage.

Now, three years, a house and a permanent job later, I find myself obsessing over anything that grows in the ground. Perhaps it came with owning a tiny plot of land, but I became fixated on getting things to grow in it.

Growing up in Utah, my mother was probably unintentionally one of the first “water wise” landscapers around. If it needed too much water, it didn’t belong in our yard. And so we had no flowers, no grasses, no lovely herb or vegetable gardens. We did have rocks, which my brothers and I used for building GI Joe and Glamour Gal forts and occasionally taking aim at one another, but nothing that required care.

Wisteria in Red Butte Garden

In college I ventured outside my comfort zone and bought a cactus I named Prick. It turns out he was suicidal and repeatedly threw himself off the leaning tower of appliances known as the “microfridge” that came with my dorm room.

In graduate school I bought a leafy hanging plant I named Raúl who grew thorns and harbored small insects and I eventually adopted him out to a plant rescue project that found a loving home for him.

Most recently, I planted a Mt. Fuji Cherry Tree in my front yard and named it “Phil,” after a friend of mine. Phil stood in the yard with Kora, our Autumn Blaze Maple, named after my best friend who coincidentally grew up in the house across the street from us and was married to Phil. About the same time Kora and Phil split, my cherry tree got sick and died. We dug it up and had a memorial service last summer and are reminded of Phil’s absence by the still present hole in the front yard. (Kora, by the way, is flourishing.)

Today I went to Red Butte Garden to film an expert on horticulture for our Faculty Face Time feature on the U’s Facebook page. I was stunned by the variety of colors, textures, the smells and the orderliness of everything. Wisteria welcomed us, ushering us into the herb garden where spirals of sage, juniper, chicory all grew in unexpected hues and patterns. The cherry trees were flowering, the cacti sunning themselves and the leafy plants were boisterous in their greenery. No suicide, no horns, no sickly passing.

I was jealous. Inspired. Overwhelmed. Intimidated. “Why can’t I do this?” Well, aside from having a full time job, limited budget and a puppy who eats everything I plant, I have no idea where to start. Where once I was indifferent to the world growing around me, I now want it all. At once. And in my garden.

I accept that my front yard will never look like Red Butte Garden. However, I’ve discovered that I can learn a lot from the experts. With classes in irrigation basics, balcony gardening, and how to grow your own herbs, I might have a chance at keeping something alive. In fact, I’ve just signed up for a mid-summer course in garden maintenance. Let’s just hope my plants make it that long.

A tour member bought me a book on the botany of Italy, I think as a not so subtle hint to learn about the living environment of the land we traveled. The balance was lost on me then. History, bricks, mortar and stories of times past need a counter weight of the living world that reemerges from its dormant sleep every spring. After all, isn’t that what Persephone taught us? And wasn’t she from Sicily?

(KAH-feeklach): noun (fr. German Kaffee = coffee + Klatsch = gossip): a casual gathering for coffee and conversation.

The wife of  a German, one of the first terms I learned in the German language was “Kaffeeklatsch,” which means simply to chat over coffee and pastries, always in the afternoon and usually at someone’s home.  At the time, “to have coffee” was an anomalous phrase to me with many different cultural strings attached.  For a Utah girl, coffee implied travel to a coffee shop to have conversation with friends.  Later, working in Italy, I learned that coffee is typically slurped standing at a bar—a comma on the way to a destination—hence the word espresso, quick.  But no place that I’ve been in the world has coffee drinking been perfected to near ceremony better than in Germany.  Reflecting this cultural phenomenon in its lexicon, Kaffeklatch is its own word, noun and verb, and one of the main meals of the day.

“Kaffee!!!”  My mother-in-law would scream up the stairs to us.  It didn’t matter the weather, work, day of the week, Kaffee was as reliable as the German ICE—high speed train.  Somewhere between 4 and 5 in the afternoon, the rich ribbon of brewing beans would twine up the stairs with the promise of Kuchen—cakes, and Kaffeklatsch.  The table was spread with small pyramids of cake, delicate coffee cups on saucers with matching pitchers for milk, cream, sugar cubes, and finally the thermos of coffee standing regal in the center of it all.  And so another afternoon would pass, klatschen about the day’s events, with each sip learning a little more about the German language and my in-laws who spoke it.

My husband and I moved to Utah knowing we would sacrifice many of the smells, tastes, and practices we love about life in Europe.  His mother diligently mails us Jacob’s Kaffee and Plätzchen—cookies—from Germany, knowing how the ceremony and the smells attached to it can transport someone home, if only for a moment.  We try to maintain ceremony but fall somewhere between the Americans, Italians, and Germans, making Italian espresso on our stove top and drinking it in the American style unaccompanied by sweets, but maintaining the German practice of doing so in the afternoon.

One can learn a lot about a people and their culture over coffee.  I learned a language, came to know my second family, and immersed myself in a country.

Working at the U, I manage to slip in a little Kaffeklatsch whenever possible—with colleagues, friends, students, and former professors.  Stay tuned as I sip my way through the offerings in and around the U and share brewed highlights. 

Care to Kaffeklatsch?  I’m open, always in the afternoons, but any cultural speed you please.