2024. 8. 23 Fri

I will write before I go out for a drink with Ivan. We will meet at the Salon Babette.  

Yesterday was a stressful day and I wasn’t quite myself. I cooked Tortiglioni with Fra’s sauce and decided to go and see Anne. Her mother had a nervous breakdown and is now in hospital. She called Anne and confessed she was getting lonelier every day, that it was terribly difficult for her to be alone. Anyone would be very fortunate to be able to be alone and yet not be lonely. I thought about this on the way home. The Sbahn was empty. A tall lady in high boots picked up my wallet that had fallen out and handed it to me between her index and middle fingers with a stern face. I walked for maybe half an hour.

F seems busy, which doesn’t bother me that much. I feel he’s a little overwhelmed at the moment, but in a good way, by his family and friends and all the fullness of Italian life that I can only imagine. Still, whenever he remembers that I am here, I get to see his many trees in his mother’s garden, or a boat and a sunset through his little phone screen. For the brief moment we share, his cheeks are blushing, not owing to me this time, but for a far better reason that is the beauty of life. And I find that immensely attractive.

F is preparing a big family dinner with his mum, which they will have tonight in that beautiful garden. He talks non-stop, sometimes in Italian to his mum, and shows me a list of groceries his dad has picked up or forgotten to pick up. He says he wishes I was there. I wish too I was.

I realise I’m writing this to the funky acid jazz F recommended. So with music, with food, with memory and its palpable surroundings he holds sway. Only if he knew how profoundly.