I grew up in a white brick house in Washington, D.C. The branches of two dogwoods, one white, one pink, met over the front walk. I carry that place around with me everywhere I go. In little ways I've adapted and recreated it in New York City, where I've lived most of my adult life with my husband and two kids. The Archaeology of Home is about the rag-tag, 150-year-old building in downtown Manhattan where we lived in the 1990s. It's also about the abiding human impulse to find permanence and meaning in the places we call home.I've written on all kinds of subjects in a variety of venues, from non-profit publications to fashion and parenting magazines, to newspapers large and small. I've written poems I read aloud to a dozen people, my heart pounding. I was a small-town daily reporter and learned a lot from the tough love readers offer in the grocery store the day after you've written about their school or workplace or church. Some critics say ordinary people should stop pouring out their experiences in blogs and memoirs. I disagree. Those are the stories I want to hear, and to tell.