I came out onto the porch yesterday and saw a peaceful tableau, a timeless one, somehow. Maria was sitting on the wicker sofa reading, a barn cat was sleeping under her raised knees, a border collie puppy was chewing a bone on the floor. Animals complete us sometimes, I believe the world works best where people and animals live in the everyday worlds of the other. They belong together, there is nothing more natural in the world than for people and animals to be together.