NO MAN IS AN ISLAND . . .

Cliche, but true.

Driving up to Ithaca late on Friday night in the Bullet, we took a pit-stop at some totally dark, remote, podunk exit about two-and-a-half hours north of Poughkeepsie. I don't even remember the town's name ... if it even was a legitimately sized town. There were no lights on the highway on the stretch of Route 17 on which we had just been, and there were barely any lights illuminating the streets of the town in which we found ourselves. It was remote, deserted almost. (I still can't figure out why, though, there was a small group of young English/Scottish men sitting around a table in the McDonald's we stopped in, for coffee and bathroom breaks. How they and their charming accents found their way to this exit is still beyond me.)

As we left McDonald's and tried to navigate our way back onto Route 17, we paused the Bullet by a messy and seemingly deserted construction site so that Mabel could make some car adjustments. I freaked out. On both sides of the road, there was complete darkness; vague and ominous shapes loomed; no other cars or people were to be seen at that hour of the night. Endless shades of grey and black stretched out around and through the structures of the construction site. Even with the three of us safely ensconced in the Bullet, I was terrified.

In the moment, I chalked it up to too much television; "CSI" was to blame, Mabel said. But I think there's more to it. I am terrified of being alone. Even when I'm not alone, I'm terrified of being alone. Even when I'm in a group of three, the fact that we three are together alone in the wilderness of upstate New York somewhere terrifies me.

We people like to be independent. We like to be self-sufficient. We like to do things ourselves, ALONE. But the bottom line, I have concluded, is this: we are terrified of being alone, and being alone just is not good for us. Vast darkness, with no one by our side, with no potential human interaction, warmth, safety, protection, companionship, rescue on the horizon, is terrifing. We are not made to be alone; we are not made to be separated from people or from God. All of our enjoyment of independence and alone-ness and self-assurance flies out the window when we stand in a dark place with no voices to be heard and no lights to be seen. We are not made to be alone, and to think we can do anything on our own is a total lie.