I thought, in a way, that we’d still have more time.  Another day perhaps to watch as the results piled up; more time to reckon the tally of swing states, to stretch out the race.  More time for will and further prayer if nothing else.  As it was, the news sat ready and waiting, squatting like a gargoyle in the rosebed of our morning newsfeeds, newly minted like a bitter coin, disbelief pregnant as a pause in the daily functioning of things.  It seems in the coming weeks and years we may have to get used to a much longer hiatus.

Given the quite obviously poor timing of the result in a world that so clearly can do with better news, it may be instructive to bear in mind that, after the vote, we have choices.  Not the choice as to whether we abide by democratic process, if we want to abide at all in any state of justification; whatever our stomachs may feel, we can’t ignore or override the vote.  But we do have choices as to other ways in which we can respond.

First and foremost, we can perhaps drop the adversarial stance; not from lack of justification but simply out of pragmatics.  It may be easier, in other words, on our collective psychologies if we view what seems to lie ahead as more of a kind of geological phenomena – more faceless, indiscriminate in its damage than a construct and outcome of a deliberate will.  It might just be easier to deal with if we see it as less a result of determined sabotage from near and far than a kind of high tide of the hand of history, where a demagogue crops up on cue – any one will do – in the face of a hailstorm of economic tribulation, where the masses are told simply what wants to be heard; that everything can somehow be put right with merely the will to believe and less reckless meddling from liberal elites who don’t seem to understand realities of putting food on the table.

We have other choices, not least simple will to continue, the will to not crumble, to not turn to the wall, to walk out defiant – not married to outcomes or even thinking of the road that lies ahead, but from a point of principle, in the knowledge survival will not lie in cowering in corners, in recrimination or deep diving on our scrolling phones.  That’s a choice that may determine a degree of dignity even if, or especially if, dignity may be all that we have left.  It certainly holds the key to whatever hope may remain.

That none of this may get easier as the months and years go by is something we can only steel ourselves for.  Whatever decisions are made, if the wire is wheeled in on our aspirations, as an attrition of newsfeeds and op-eds, redolent with apparent reality, grinds and clogs our sensibilities we will need more than simply bloodymindedness.  We will need stamina, a calling forth of resources, the will to believe that there might be more in us than we dare think.  Strange as it may seem, we can meet this moment mindful of not just a better sense of our potential but with a greater grasp of our humanity, of that which we are capable of.

We do not need reminders that none of this is a given, let alone that it may not be easy.  But we should keep an ear out for those that can help, those voices calling us on.  We may be surprised by their currency, borne perhaps by their necessity, like somebody calling us home from the dark.

Even as we dig in, we should lift up our voices, go forward unbowed even as we buckle down.  It is dark here as I write on this early winter English night.  I know it will be a long time before the inevitable Spring.  We can only do what we have always done: be mindful of the beautiful things even as we shoulder the wheel in hope of better times, mindful of our spirits, of the knowledge that, if the embers of hope be ever so small, we can still nurture them, carry them with us, still somehow keep them alive.  In spite, or perhaps even because, of everything that we may face, there is a great spirit flowing through these times.  Step outside: can you feel it?