"I will return to Ithaca," he tells her when the Achaeans summon him to war; "Ithaca will await you," she tells him in return, neither saying outright you or I, but rather binding the whole of the land into their promise to each other.

And so Penelope keeps Ithaca alive: the groves and orchards tended, the flocks herded, the fields plowed, sown, and harvested, the seas fished, ships afloat, cloth woven, iron forged, homes built, and all the myriad tasks that weave a people and a kingdom into one dreaming, growing self.

When Odysseus returns, Ithaca is not the same land he left, nor are he and Penelope the young couple who parted, but both are whole and alive; the bonds have held, and from there all futures are possible.