Very Far Away from Anywhere Else

by Ursula K. Le Guin

It’s hard to realize that the really important things are just normal little happenings and decisions, and when they turn on the background music and the spotlights and the uniforms, nothing important is going to happen at all.

And if you think all that, running even a small family and house so that things are decent and peaceful, is a small job, maybe you ought to try it for a year or two. She works hard and uses her head at it. But the trouble is, she’s afraid of doing anything else, of being anything else. Not afraid for herself, I think, but afraid that if she did anything except look after us, she’d be letting us down—letting the side down, not being a good wife and mother.

side. This is what you always forget, you think you know what to expect, but you don’t; what you expect is what doesn’t happen, and what you don’t expect is what does.