The author looks back at the age of 80 with frank honesty on her life as an expatriate in developing countries and her personal search for a sense of integrity, belonging and community. From her early childhood in New Zealand and Fiji, she followed her first husband to Hawaii, Iraq, Sudan, Vietnam and Jordan. When her young daughter became seriously ill, she left for London and began life on her own, overcoming alcoholism and depression to find a new happiness within a second marriage. She became an American citizen in 1997 and after the death of her husband, moved from Santa Barbara, California to the Ojai Valley and then to Colorado to be close to her son and grandchildren. Now retired in Albuquerque, New Mexico she enjoys writing and the company of her two small dogs. Her memoir recounts her journey with sometimes painful introspection to the point where she can say that an examined life is 'the only life worth living.'