Dear readers,

I closed Americanah three years ago. It was my first time reading a novel in which I could see myself through the main character. Just like the protagonist Ifemelu, I had struggled with my kinky, untamable, and frankly, impossible hair. Just like Ifemelu, I had been subjected to microaggressions from my peers. And just like Ifemelu, though I didn’t know it back then, I would also set foot in the United States three years later...

My alarm clock goes off faithfully at seven o'clock every morning. It’s usually when it's still dark outside, when streets are uncharacteristically quiet, and when pedestrians are, to my dreamy eyes, amorphous silhouettes. I crawl languidly out of bed, half-consciously grab my phone from the corner of my desk, and tap the Gmail icon on the screen that always has a red 100+ icon on its upper right corner. Each week, I receive emails from the same places: the Heyman Center for the Humanities, the Butler Circulation Desk, the newspapers that I subscribe to, my clubs, my classes, the minutiae of daily attendings—over and over and over again—until they all start to look the same. ..

My father spent his life outside, nestled between the Appalachian foothills and the Ohio River. I, on the other hand, was no Laura Ingalls Wilder. I much preferred to read about the great outdoors than see it myself...

On April 24th, 2017, in the suburbs of Wilton, Connecticut, a house burned. The flame started in the attic and moved downward with an open, red mouth. The fire lasted for only half an hour, but by the time the fire department arrived, the sky shone brightly into the living room. This is what was lost: three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a hallway, another hallway, an heirloom Persian rug, family pictures, a beloved stuffed animal, a double-breasted Armani suit from the eighties saved for a daughter for when the time came, and the alphabetized library of a woman who spent 40 years gathering the books she loved...