February3,2026- I watched a lone sparrow, sitting on a branch of an oak tree next door. The bird was quietly resting, before continuing its flight, in search of bugs or worms. In the house, Hana was in her smaller bassinet, quietly watching the revolving dogs of the mobile that hangs above. She cooed and talked to them, before drifting off to sleep. “Lullaby by Brahms” contributed to the calm.

Babies and animals, alike, are never really alone, when in their family groups. Hana has her mother, father and me, one of us always within earshot, and/or line of sight, until she is old enough to play, or walk to school, with friends. Our local animals, from the birds, squirrels, rabbits and coyotes that live nearby, in Hoblitzelle Park and visit our neighbourhood to the pets that are kept safe from those same coyotes, all have at leas one other of their species to keep them company.

I was somewhat comfortable in my own company, growing up, but have always needed a presence nearby. There were usually family and friends, when I was a child,yet when I was solitary, invented a cadre of imaginary people. That came back to haunt me later, when I couldn’t quite let go of my imagined world. Still. the ideals that I conjured up have turned out to be rather beneficial to humanity: The ideas that there are no real strangers,that people of different nations can be friends across thousands of miles, that we might talk with one another on phones that are not confined to a house, that there is value in learning geography, that there is life on other planets, have largely become so commonplace as to be cliched.

We are seeing, however, a different sort of imaginary world surfacing , in the isolationist pronouncements that are behind much of the recent actions by some in governmental capacity. One may idle a car in neutral, for a time, and certainly should back up on occasion, but driving long distance in reverse is just as foolhardy as, say, driving 190 mph anywhere other than a designated race track. My fantasies of being alone with imaginary people did me no good. Neither will pretending that one group of people, holding one set of ideas, and practicing one way of life, work to their advantage, or anyone else’s, in the long run.

Michael Jackson sums it up, in another context, at a very basic level.