the left wing of darkness
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.
~~Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness, page 52
I’m not a novel reader anymore, but cleaning out my bookcase and feeling more unsettled than usual, I thought it might be relaxing to escape, a chapter at a time, into one of Ursula LeGuin’s novels.
In one of those fiendish moments of almost giddy serendipity, the above was the last line I read before turning out the lights at the beginning of my failed attempt to sleep through the election returns.
Tossing and turning, I finally got out of bed at 1:30 am or so, when the sound of Romney’s voice finally forced me downstairs to see what was happening. Lo and behold, a concession speech.
The uncertainty isn’t gone by any means.