I live in a beautiful place, near the people I love most, but this space doesn’t feel quite like home. I was a little girl in the East, then grew up mostly in Colorado, and returned east — to New York, specifically — in my mid-twenties. I lived there for…

For seventeen and a half years, I had a clear identity. I was Professor Payne. But recently, that identity died. I killed it. There is a difference between loss of someone — a loved person or pet — and the loss of a cherished dream or desire, just as there…

The Lonely Cottonwood Model of Happiness Because I grew up where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains, there is a powerful image in my mind that has become a useful metaphor for me. Occasionally, on that western prairie, where the land begins to buckle and roll instead of lying…

I grew up in a family with a built-in schism. My mother, the older child of a former concert pianist and a professor of mathematics and astronomy, was raised in university towns, first New Haven, then Athens, Ohio. While not remotely wealthy, her family was comfortable. They were cultured, proud…

Who would I be holding now if I’d held you then? — The choices branch: Each “yes” in one universe becomes a “no” in another. Each “no” becomes a “yes.” So, how did I get here, holding my infant grandchild? Let’s say that the night I was in his arms — I was 18, he was 23 — and I didn’t have…

Meditations on “Home”: Woods and Meadowlarks My little-girl years, those formative ages between four and ten, were during the sixties: I was a tag-along baby boomer. During that time my family — my parents, my older sister, and I — lived in Pennsylvania. I remember moving there (in a few…