“Italian.” 

I was surprised. No one had ever asked me to cook Italian food for them. 

For thirteen years, before my divorce, I lived in Gouda. During that period I happily made quite a few friends and remain in contact with people. But for professional and private reasons I became closer to one family with whom I still regularly meet up to share stories and home cooking. 

*

I racked my brain. Italian food. What did I have in my repertoire that would be enjoyable or special? My thoughts wandered off to the time I visited my father’s translator in Bologna. I was living in Paris and needed to escape my apartment because of tensions with an unpredictable roommate.

Wearing my roommate’s trench coat and fresh off the train one February afternoon in the early 1990’s, I made my way to the translator’s apartment in the heart of the city. A jovial person, he made me feel welcome and cooked me dinner. He was known for his love of food and drink and carefully explained his method of cooking chicken breasts in aluminum foil with great joy and affection.

*

It had been quite some years since I had made that dish. And I’ve come to realize that Franco was rather exasperated with me as a guest. “You’re here!’ he exclaimed one evening. I didn’t stay long at his apartment, maybe three days or so, and I was startled by his statement. Franco’s apartment had books piled up in corners, records of all genres of music and marble floors with patterns. It was the last item that fascinated me most. Why would I want to be anywhere else? 

*

I now understand that Franco thought that I, then as a twenty-two year old, would navigate towards other people my age and find a “scene”. In truth I was wandering around Bologna in someone else’s trench coat, inspecting dusty churches and, despite the assholes tediously trailing me around the city, I was having a reasonably good time. But honestly, I liked Paris much more than Bologna. 

“Franco La Polla?” the director at the Instituto Italiano in Amsterdam said to me, raising her eyebrows. This was twenty odd years later and I was performing in a half lunatic and rather lame production of Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona. I happened to be the director, manager and soprano of the production. My colleague had arranged a performance of the piece in honor of his fiftieth anniversary at the Instituto. I was discussing the logistics of the matter in the director’s office. It turned out Franco had been a close friend to the woman and her husband. 

*

The show at the Instituto Italiano was nothing short of one of the worst evenings I have ever experienced while on stage. The performance was worthy of being stuck in a novel and I consider the twelve show “tournée” of Serva Padrona as fodder for a potential sequel to Idle Opportunities. 

Milling over these things, two points stand out to me. 1. I was never active in my peer group’s activities and 2. I have a tendency to initially accept people without being judgemental. My friends from Gouda are humans who are a little “off the beaten track” and who have opted for a wide variety of life choices with the subsequent ups and downs.  I feel that this pattern is a very reasonable one because I myself have obviously never followed the leaders well, hanging back to examine the patterns in marble floors. For instance.