Returning home to New York after 17 years in Texas, the author expects to resume where she left off, to chart something new, to find home. Instead, she finds herself on the Number Four Express Train fearing that a bomb will detonate on her morning commute. To distract her from what feels like impending doom, she writes about her past and present in a hot pink fake leather notebook, exploring thoughts and observations that become this book. She describes the re-entry, examining notions of home, motherhood, time, love and loss, and realizes that the place where she struggled had shaped her in countless good ways.