Leap Days: Chronicles of a Midlife Move

Katherine Lanpher, whose essays have appeared in the New York Times and More magazine, officially moved to Manhattan on a leap day, transferring from a rooted life in the Midwest to a new job, a new city, and a new sense of who she was. But re-invention is a tricky business and starting over in the middle of life isn't for the feint of heart.

Katherine Lanpher's short essay on her first six months in New York—"A Manhattan Admonition" was published last August in the New York Times op-ed pa...