I sell my first book to Random House, a memoir of my years as a war photographer, for twice my NBC salary.
I'd always assumed that by 40 I'd have at least a modicum of stability - a steady income, an established career, a bountiful fullness, like a pillow into which I could sink as I entered the second half of my life.
Born in 1966, I came of age at the dawn of a revolution. The past was gone; we would move on and get over it!
I have an Emmy, but it's no big deal: work in TV news long enough, you eventually get one.
This is what sexism does best: it makes you feel crazy for desiring parity and hopeless about ever achieving it.
I do miss the excitement of seeing history up close, of having intimate knowledge, through direct experience, of what happens when people and governments clash, but I do not miss the danger or the constant displacement.
When it comes down to it, I believe that, having made the decision to bring children into the world, I owe it to them to be as present as I can in their daily lives and to try my best to stay alive until they've made it through to adulthood.
When it comes to writers, I'm a huge fan of Ian McEwan. I've never taken a writing course, but reading and deconstructing his novels has been as good a lesson as any.
Photography forces one out into the world, interacting with people and the environment. It flexes all those right brain, spatially-adept muscles.
I am nothing if not rational about what is worthy of my anxiety and what is not, and I refuse to live my life as if a giant bus is just around the corner, waiting to crush me the minute I step off the curb.
My husband and I were born three weeks apart, and our plan had always been to throw a joint party for our 40th birthdays.
