Ithaca

Dreamed I was publishing some sort of magazine. The magazine was very amateurish, but I was getting kind of excited about it because it was generating more and more attention. Every day, I would think of more things it needed—like Wait! It needs an editorial calendar!

Of course, I knew the reason the little magazine was generating so much attention was because Erica was involved with it.

(In the dream, Erica kept flickering back and forth, becoming the actress Elizabeth Taylor.)

Then Erica announced she couldn’t do the magazine anymore because she was getting married.

And I was in a panic because (a) without Erica the magazine would fall apart, and (b) she hadn’t invited me to her wedding.

I discovered whom she was marrying. A guy named Phil who hadn’t been interested in me exactly but who had tried to befriend me and whom I had blown off because he was very earnest, sincere, and—well—dull.

How could Erica be marrying him? I wondered. And was filled with consternation: What did I miss about him?



Ithaca was fun but also a bit nerve-wracking because I had another one of those nights where I could not sleep.

Happened the first night I was there.

I mean, I did something.

I lay in bed all night long, willing myself not to toss and turn but to stay still, breathing as though I was sleeping.

But my consciousness of my immediate surroundings never disappeared. It was as though I could not slip down that well into hypnogogic consciousness.

Didn’t help that the cheap, cheap motel room I’d booked was kind of awful. The TV didn’t work, the bathroom door would not close, the bedside lamp delivered a tiny shock every time I turned it off or on.

At some point during that night, I put my mind to work on the question of why I couldn’t fall asleep. The best I could come up with was that I was anxious. I would have to tell RTT: Loser Mom can’t do anything today; she has to stay in bed all day in this ugly motel room. I had a coffee date with Molly, and I would have to tell Molly, Sorry, sorry, I’m gonna have to cancel—

Performance anxiety.



I did neither.

Instead, when I met up with Molly, I told her upfront: I didn’t sleep well.

And we went on to have a most delightful conversation that started with how it’s almost impossible to sleep well anywhere but in your own bed and evolved into a heart-to-heart about our respective X-husbands, both psychopathic liars and gas-lighters of amazing versatility and endless charm.

Molly is Ben’s second cousin.

“Ben was really, really smart,” Molly said. “Scary smart. RTT’s really, really smart, too. But without the scary.”

“The worst thing was that I couldn’t tell anybody,” I confided to Molly. “I was so embarrassed. I mean—what was I going to say?”

“Oh, I know,” Molly said. “I had to wait until the kids were out of the house. Because I didn’t want to out what an idiot I'd been in front of the kids.”

I recounted the various things Ben had done over the course of our 17-year marriage. They’re humorous anecdotes to me now. I suppose I could have stripped them of the humor, presented them as a strict victimization scenario, except that isn’t the way I see them. I see them as comedy.

Anyway, Molly and I bonded.

And that was… nice.

Since Molly lives in Ithaca, she’s the go-to when RTT needs adult supervision—like when he had COVID a couple of months ago, Molly was the one who checked in on him, brought him groceries.

That’s why I’d wanted to take her out for coffee, in fact. As a kind of thank you.



When I told RTT that I thought I hadn’t been able to sleep because I’d felt anxious, he nodded. “You’re one of the most anxious people I know.”

“That’s not true!” I said, shocked.

“Are you kidding? If you put your purse down and don’t know where you put it, you go into an absolute tail spin. When you drive, if you get lost for two minutes—”

And I had to concede the truth of what he was saying—

And then I thought, And this is why I prefer to be alone or surrounded by people with whom I don’t have a long, tangled history. I’m not anxious when I’m surrounded by people with whom I don’t have a long, tangled history —

And that was actually an astounding insight.

Which will take me a while to unpack.



Anyway, RTT and I had a fabulous time.

The first night, we got wrecked together.

The second night, he wanted me to teach him how to cook.

I thought of all the complicated recipes I could show him.

And then I thought, Nah. Demonstrate something that’s not showy that he can throw together in an hour:

Watch on YouTube

His New Year’s Resolution was to start living in a healthier manner. To work out more, eat better, and start cooking at home—and it shows: He looks better, seems happy, and our interactions were easy, unstrained, and entirely affectionate.



The day I left, we swung on over to the Southside Community Center, which was having its monthly open house, and I met some of his friends—who seemed delighted to meet me! “I feel like I know you!” they said. “RTT posts about you so often on his Instagram!”

Some absolutely brilliant artwork on display.

Including this interactive map of the Ithaca southside, which some third-graders had put together, and which I just loved:



The Southside Community Center was where I used to take Rutger and the Meezer to get their vaccinations during what were absolutely the two unhappiest years of my life.

I half-expected there to be some residue of that deep, deep unhappiness.

But, no. There wasn’t.

The past is over.

It has no sting.