Alice Munros Best

But are there other people who open a shop with the hope of being sheltered there, among such things as they most value – the yarn or the teacups or the books – and with the idea only of making a comfortable assertion? They will become a part of the block, a part of the street, part of everybody’s map of the town, and eventually of everybody’s memories. They will sit and drink coffee in the middle of the morning, they will get out the familiar bits of tinsel at Christmas, they will wash the windows in spring before spreading out the new stock. Shops, to these people, are what a cabin in the woods might be to somebody else – a refuge and a justification.

This was their time of liveliest intimacy, though there was also, of course, the five or ten minutes of physical sweetness just after they got into bed — something that did not often end up in sex but reassured them that sex was not over yet.

“I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” she said. “I expect I’m just losing my mind.”

any sojourner on earth