The processes of creating and maintaining a personal history and sense of "being in time" and the repeated transformation of the spaces of our lives into the places of our lives in a complex and cumulative dynamic manner are the 2 fundamental ingredients in constructing a life story. This chapter focuses on the latter theme, synthesizing current knowledge about being in place and the manner in which this phenomenon evolves over the life course, becomes manifest in old age, and is affected by personal and environmental change. A conceptual life course model is offered that views being in place as a function of the way in which spaces are repeatedly transformed into places as individuals move through the environments of their lives. It is hypothesized that each move to a new setting involves a process of inhabiting the new or reconfigured space in a manner that involves transference of past environmental experience, integration of new circumstances, and redefinition of our being in place.
Abstract