I'm such an analytical writer; it drives me crazy, not having a structure to work within. So I finally came up with a tentative frame for the memoir, which is partly chronological, partly geographic. I'm not sure if this will work -- among other things, the pacing is tremendously different between the two sections, since Part I covers the thirty-three years of my life, and Part II will be a combination of three weeks of actual travel with two thousand years of Sri Lankan history. But what the heck -- it's a place to start:
Prologue: Revised Itineraries
Part I: In America
Chapter 1: Childhood in Connecticut
Chapter 2: College in Chicago
Chapter 3: Philadelphia, Oakland, Salt Lake City
Chapter 4: Home in Chicago
Part II: In Sri Lanka
Chapter 5: Colombo, Kandy, Negombo
Chapter 6: Nuwara Eliya
Chapter 7: The Ancient Cities
Chapter 8: Trincomalee, Jaffna
Chapter 9: After the Tsunami
Epilogue: Home Again
