Memory and change
Alexander says that for her, moving around as a child influenced her deeply. The memoir isn't her first attempt to remember her old lives; because of the way moving from India to Sudan influenced her life, she remembers how important the past was to her even in childhood. As a kid in Sudan, she used to vacation to the family home in Southern India in the summers, soaking it all in, trying to remember, and trying to capture the paradise that her home meant for her. To move away from her grandfather's garden in India was like a fall of man for Alexander, and the change was painful to her when that was gone.
Family and home
It tells a lot about Meena Alexander's point of view that she starts her story with her parents. She tells who her family is, which sibling she is (the first of three girls), and what her father did. She tells about her family house in southern India. To Alexander, family is part of life's meaning. When she remembers her grandfather sitting in his garden surrounded by mango and cashew trees, she feels a paradisal connection to that scene, and when she moves forward to become a mother herself, that represents a kind of eternal progress to Alexander.
Femininity and identity
In Sudan, the gender roles that shaped life for women were different enough that from a young age, Alexander was sensitive to what gender roles were. She resisted the strict laws that she was forced to live with. For her, clothing became a critical part of discovering who she was as a woman. Later in the book, she reflects on the ways that her identity changed because of the moves, and she reflects on the way cultural assumption and social constructs shape her experience of self.
