“…isn’t it strange, I mean, this thing about being a human being breathing and thinking and sensing and dwelling always, always, in a place?”

This essay in the Millions is all about place and home—how all aspects of living occurs in some sort of physical context, all readers are anchored in some sort of “inner geography,” and how being from somewhere is key to a writer’s ability to observe and report honestly on the experience of living in a new place.