Anything I tried to do, my mother had done before me

S

hlomo Hamelech was quite right: There’s nothing new under the sun. I know that because every new passion that sends me into a tizzy of interest has been previously pursued — by my mother.

The first time I realized this I was 14 and had set out to learn Italian. “It’s just so wonderful, the sound of it!” I told my mother rapturously as she stood, mixing crispy potatoes on the stove in the dimly lit kitchen that was her kingdom.

“Mm, hmm,” my mother said. She might have said more, but I suspect I didn’t stop talking for long enough to give her the chance.

I learned Italian from CDs (remember those?), from books, and traveled that summer with friends to Italy, where I got on very well in Italian. When we got back home, I excitedly told my mother everything, repeating the station announcements, the conversations I had with the ticket conductors on trains, the romantically named cities, the heavenly kosher restaurants, the midnight Roman marketplace.

I was in full flow, when my mother, stirring some margarine into a pot of mashed potatoes, corrected an Italian word I’d used. I stopped short.