memories of Croatia: a thread of quietness beneath the movement, children play in the streets, dogs with gentle-knowing, almost human eyes, my next door neighbor sings while she strings clothes on the laundry-line. There are no barriers that blur vision, just unflinching humanity. I am a child. Drinking coffee under the grapevines. Watching my grandfather smoke cigarettes like eternity. I sit with my friend Ivana behind the red brick house looking out on to a giant green field under a white blazing sun.