For a long time I resolved not to build a house of my own for fear of getting too attached to it and then losing it in this unsettled land of ours, ending up spending the rest of my life lamenting its loss, as happened to my parents. It was only after the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the PLO in the mid-1990s, and the confusion and chaos that came in their wake, that I decided I needed a place to which I could retire at the end of the day, a place of order and tranquillity.