Dear Aimee Nezhukumatathil,
As a kid, I had an unfounded obsession with the ocean. It was a strange fascination, considering we lived in Muncie, Indiana—447 miles from the nearest saltwater body.
I watched endless hours of BBC documentaries and dragged my parents to the Newport Aquarium where you could watch reef sharks and tropical fish swim all around you in the shark tunnel. I loved the magical feeling of being dry while completely submerged in their underwater world, running my oily fingers against the glass so the sharks got eye-level with my fingerprints. I got the sense that they really looked at me; that maybe they knew me in ways even I could not access. Thoreau may have transcended the material world at Walden, but it was in the gaze of these immigrant sharks, many miles from their native seas, that I found my own sublime.
World of Wonders reminded me of that awe I felt so often as a child as I fully submerged myself in the lives of other species. Your essays, which cover everything from touch-me-not plants to whale sharks, hold each creature in a loving embrace, detailing the unique abilities they bring to the world. I loved learning about how axolotls can grow back broken jaws and cracked spines, and how cactus wrens ingeniously make dummy nests to distract predators from their real home.
But these pieces of animal and plant trivia (thrilling as they are) are a small fraction of what makes your book shine. You go beyond the scientific, delving into stories from your personal life to show how these species have given you comfort, curiosity, and a means to examine our human existence.
I am in love with the way you make language for the invisible connections between us and the other beings we share the Earth with. You show how other species comfort us, as in your essay “Firefly”: “They blink on and off, a lime glow to the summer night air, as if to say: I am still here, you are still here… I am, you are, over and over again” (13-14). And you remind us of our responsibility to our fellow inhabitants: “The horizontal slit of an octopus’s eye is a door that judges us. I am certain it knows we humans are messing up entirely, that in just a matter of decades the oceans will become unswimmable to any of us animals” (105).
My favorite essays in this collection are the odes to your childhood. Like me, you grew up in a juxtaposition of cultures. Your parents—your father from India and your mother from the Philippines—moved you and your sister from Iowa to Arizona to Kansas. You were a volunteer plant: a seed that was ferried away to new soils and determined to blossom where no one had planned for it to grow. I saw myself in you as you navigated a country built by immigrants, but not for them.
My heart broke as I read “Peacock,” in which you recount a time in school when you drew your favorite multi-colored bird, only to be told by the teacher that the assignment was to “draw American animals. We live in Amer-i-kah!” (16). You were eight years old. You started over and drew a bald eagle with an American flag in the background. You asked your dad to remove all the peacock statues in your house. You did what I had done in my own childhood: shrunk the parts of yourself they could ridicule. But now you refuse to give that teacher the last word and write, “This is the story of how I learned to ignore anything from India… But what the peacock can do is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life: My favorite color is peacock blue” (19).
On the days when I am most concerned about our changing climate and the ills of our society, I turn to the beauty and urgency of these essays. Your poetic rendering of these creatures takes me back to my days in the aquarium; days of wonder and seemingly impossible connection. Thank you for reminding me how truly important it is to move towards “cherishing this magnificent and wonderful planet” (160).
Sincerely,
Vahni Kurra
