To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely. When Lucinda came down the Parramatta Ri

To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.

When Lucinda came down the Parramatta River in Sol Meyer’s boat, she imagined her life would be a lonely one, and she felt a strength through recognising it. And yet what she imagined was not loneliness, which is boggy and sour, but something else which was bright and hard. The difference between what she imagined and what she finally experienced is the difference between the blade of a knife - an object of chilly beauty - and the chronic pain of an open wound.

-Oscar and Lucinda, Chapter 63