Therapists say the unconscious is the mind's "cupboard under the stairs" where our traumas, embarrassments and most private memories are stowed. I once had an actual cupboard under the stairs rammed to the door with, among other things, three broken shower heads that I felt sure I'd need again one day. "What's in that cupboard?" my boyfriend wanted to know. "Nothing," I said, fearing exposure. I felt as if the cupboard . . .

Fleeing home is a family tradition. Mum, South African and pro-ANC, fled from apartheid. Dad, American and Jewish, fled, I think, from his mother. Last October, with nothing much to flee from at all, I made his decades-delayed return journey to New York City. Hibernating in the quiet, snow-blanketed suburbs, I can't say that my life has been changed forever. Were I in London, I would likely be doing what I am now: . . .