I stepped inside 

and immediately felt at ease, 

as though in the presence of close friends among the many books with the colorful spines, 

the towering wooden shelves, 

and the scent of old paper, mustiness,

and memories.

That there might be a place where people were not constantly competing against each other for their very sustenance, but were instead helping each other survive through war and injury and poverty and pain, seemed as much something out of a Jane Austen novel as anything else she could have hoped to find.

Nothing in the world like the spark between men and women. What a marvelous and mysterious combination. Two sides of the same coin, you know. We both want the same thing, to give and receive love, to be cared for, respected.

We just come at it from a different point of view.