"The pleasure of tending, tending something that will not be taken away. A family, a tree, growing for so long, finally fruiting olives, the benevolence of branch, and not to find a chopped trunk upon return. Confidence in a threshold. A little green. And quite a modest green untouched by drama. Or a mound of calico coverlets stuffed with wool, from one's own sheep, piled in a cupboard. To find them still piled. Is that too much? Not to dominate. Never to say we are the only people who count, or to be the only victims, the chosen, more holy or precious. No. Just to be ones who matter as much as any other, in a common way, as you might prefer. Stones and books and daily freedom. A little neighborly respect."