Didi and Ambro

June 4, 2010


Wednesday was the Day of the Republic, so we had the day off.  So Tuesday night, it was Mexican night at Deirdre's and Ambrogio's.  Jenna, Zach, Mike, Marco and I invaded their dining room as conversation shifted between Italian politics and the music industry that Ambrogio and Marco spend most of their days in.  I couldn't help but think about the couple that seems to always welcome us in...

Didi says “sorry” as a filler word apologizing for even things she can’t control.  Ambro speaks English better than all of us.  And if there is one thing they ooze, it is “cool” and though I am far too old to care about such things, when they ask me to do something I feel like I am that middle school girl who has been asked to hang out with the high schoolers. 

She, who loves flowers and uses anything she can for a vase to house pea pods and stems.  I am quite confident she could make weeds found in the garden look romantic.  Their apartment rests in the west side of Milan and was the very apartment Ambrogio grew up in.  When you go there for dinner she will point out from what corner he learned to crawl.  The large living room hosts thousands of records that he claims he is in the process of digitalizing.

“It will take years.” 

A disco ball hangs over the site of Sunday morning dance parties where Didi and Ambrogio are the only guests.  He seems happiest there, with one headphone on and is just as meticulous planning dinner party playlists as when we are out at the Tunnel or Zoom.  

“Didi <3 Ambro” goes down the door leading to the kitchen in black and white stickers that appear as if they have been there forever.  Pen drawings of each of them sit in the entryway, framed, drawn on corners of placemats made during date nights now long past.

“We always draw each other.”  She says with a smile. 

They adore one another in a way that is simple and real and make the clichés you could state about them sweet and uncomplicated. Their terms of endearment, “Lovey” and his references to “my wife” are used without spectacle and are genuinely unconscious. 

True love is a club that not everyone gains admittance and even though Didi often demands my eye contact when insisting it can happen twice.  Today, and maybe just today, it doesn’t seem to matter much.  I just really like them together.