…that’s what my friend said to me while we drove through Minneapolis with our kids in the backseat. I’ve known D. since we were 20-years old. Now we’re both writers and in somewhat parallel situations as writers who stay at home with our kids. But his wife brings home a good paycheck and he salted a lot away during a decade in Hollywood as a screenwriter. I’m trying out the idea of moving to the Twin Cities during this trip but having a hard time figuring out just how or what would actually get me up here. Other than a leap of faith. I’ve taken a lot of those in my life, but I don’t have another in me at the moment.

“You’ll just have to find me some wonderful man, so I can move here to be with him,” I muse to D. 

“You don’t want that,” he says a bit sharply.

“How do you know?” I ask, wondering just what it is I do want.

“Don’t you just want to be alone?” D more says than asks.

“Some days yes. Some days no.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” he says. “I would love to be alone. I mean, minus the kid,” he nods to the backseat where his son is chirping about Pokemon with my son. This dark haired, big-eyed boy is clearly his favorite person in the world. As for his wife, they are in a detante. Things between them could be worse, but they could definitely be better. The two of them have begrudgingly chosen togetherness, but D, it’s apparent, dreams of solo-ness.

We whiz home because D has invited friends over for cocktails at my insistence. I’m hungry to meet new people, to feel part of an urban groove. She’s an artist who does large-scale installations and he has some lucrative writing assignments that I want to hear about. I’m imagining a slightly boozy, high-brow, funny talk.

Jack and Sal pull up in their mini-van with two kids. They’re all apologies because they only have a short window of time before they have to leave to take the boys to baseball games. The red wine goes untouched because Sal is detoxing. So much for the urban groove.  But he is worth the whole visit. He is lovely and I am smitten. I imagine her accidentally slipping off a ladder while working on an installation and me moving up to Minneapolis to be with him following an appropriate grieving process. His mouth is perfect…

My son comes into the room looking for his stuffed animal and I snap out of my reverie.

Last night, during a yoga class, I nearly touched the ankle of the man in front of me during one pose. He wasn’t an especially appealing person, I just can’t remember the last time I was that close to a naked male ankle. 

There may be nothing wrong with being alone – and certainly being around the subtle cat fight of this particular marriage is making me see its benefits – but I’d take a little togetherness of a certain ilk. There’s nothing  wrong with that.