Home is where the heart is

It’s been 16 years since I came home to Winchester, and while I’ve nev­er thought of myself as ter­ri­to­r­i­al, appar­ent­ly I am.

The house I grew up in, con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed across the street, is now owned and occu­pied by a love­ly young cou­ple — but I still con­sid­er it mine. When they do things like change the exte­ri­or light fix­tures or cut the grass too short, I notice and pass swift, silent judgment.

When in Lexington, my hus­band and I often “make the rounds,” our spe­cial phrase for dri­ving by places we used to live. If traf­fic is heavy, this can eas­i­ly con­sume an entire after­noon since, over the course of two-plus decades, we lived in hous­es, dorms, apart­ments, and duplex­es all over town.

While trav­el­ing, we fre­quent­ly go out of our way to cruise old haunts in Louisville, Huntington, Indianapolis, and west­ern Kentucky. Someday we’ll get back to Minneapolis/St. Paul, where Jeff lived for a time in the ‘80s.

Please tell me you do this sort of thing, too — that we’re not the only ones so emo­tion­al­ly attached to places that we find our­selves return­ing to them again and again.

This cir­cling-back behav­ior, in my expe­ri­ence, can take many forms: dri­ving slow­ly by a place while star­ing at it; pulling over in front of a place while star­ing at it; walk­ing slow­ly past a place while star­ing at it; stand­ing very still in front of a place while star­ing at it — you get the picture.

And speak­ing of images, I’d argue that por­ing over old pho­tographs and trolling Zillow counts, too.

At the risk of sound­ing like some­one in need of a life and/or a job, this is one of my favorite things to do. Revisiting old stomp­ing grounds is also high on Jeff’s like-to-do list, and yes, we are both retired and dri­ve a Prius. But the onset of this behav­ior began long before we stopped work­ing or bought our first hybrid, so what­ev­er is wrong with us is clear­ly chronic.

Some places draw us more force­ful­ly than oth­ers, our Cedar Lake house in Fleming County being one of the most compelling.

Every autumn we con­duct a Cedar Lake dri­ve-by, which is real­ly a day trip since it involves an hour-plus trek to Ewing, KY (pop­u­la­tion 300 if you count the coon­hounds), as well as leisure­ly jaunts through Flemingsburg and often Maysville. This year we pulled out all the stops and even crossed the mighty Ohio River into Aberdeen and Ripley, where we used to knock around a bit, too.

It was a glo­ri­ous October after­noon when we set out, decid­ing to take the Mt. Sterling route up and the Paris route back. Throughout the scenic dri­ve, we lis­tened to music, chat­ted, and looked for­ward to see­ing the place we called home at the start of the new millennium.

We did a lot of man­u­al labor on those three rur­al acres, so it’s always fun to check out the matur­ing landscape.

Twenty-two years ago I plant­ed a side-yard maple allee, envi­sion­ing a fleet of flu­o­res­cent red sen­tries direct­ing the eye down to Fleming Creek and up the wood­ed hill­side thick with hick­o­ry, oak, and cedar. At the edge of the lake I plant­ed sev­er­al bald cypress­es, hop­ing some­day they’d sprout “knees.”

What a relief it is to know that Jeff and I aren’t the only ones out there creep­ing around, retrac­ing our steps, search­ing for… God only knows what?

I lov­ing­ly installed a sweep­ing peren­ni­al bed fea­tur­ing Grandma Sybil’s brick step­ping stones, and I tilled up the veg­etable gar­den — a large geo­met­ric affair staked out with miles of white string — with a rear-tined “Bronco” so pow­er­ful it almost dis­lo­cat­ed my shoulders.

And then there was the house, a gleam­ing white bea­con on a rise between the lake and the creek.

Constructed in clas­sic low-coun­try style, this spa­cious, light-filled dwelling was a DIY boot­camp with wrap-around porch­es. Inside its walls I toiled might­i­ly, prac­tic­ing patience and per­sis­tence through exhaust­ing weeks spent scrap­ing, sand­ing, strip­ping, patch­ing, and painting.

When we moved to Fleming County from our per­fect lit­tle house in Lexington, it was for Jeff’s new job. I didn’t know a soul in the area, but the stun­ning nat­ur­al beau­ty sus­tained me dur­ing those lone­some ear­ly days. With so much work to do, the time passed quick­ly, and with­in a few gru­el­ing months I came to know the place — and myself — in a brand new way.

When we left sev­en years lat­er, I waved good­bye to won­der­ful friends, a beau­ti­ful home, and a world that lit­er­al­ly trans­formed me. To this day I still dream about that windswept house on the hill.

I’m always a lit­tle sur­prised by my very vis­cer­al response to this annu­al pilgrimage.

Every year — and this year was no excep­tion — my pulse quick­ens as we turn onto the wind­ing coun­try road that leads to the house. When we top that final hill and the green rooftop slides into view, a bit­ter­sweet mix­ture of pride, nos­tal­gia, sor­row, and joy wash­es over me. It’s all I can do to resist pulling into the dri­ve­way and walk­ing straight into the liv­ing room.

I don’t do that, of course, because strangers sleep there now, bliss­ful­ly unaware that the entire place — the hand­some house and grounds, the small lake and rough hill­side, the brick and field­stone walk­ways, even the vast silent sky with its heart-break­ing sun­sets and sprawl­ing galax­ies— belongs for­ev­er to me.

Can this pos­si­bly be normal?

I thought I’d look into that after this year’s out­ing, so I googled “is it nor­mal to feel ter­ri­to­r­i­al about my for­mer house.” An arti­cle about dys­func­tion­al dogs — to which I could eeri­ly relate — popped up. Hmmm.

I tried again, this time typ­ing “is it nor­mal to dri­ve by my old hous­es.” Bingo. Validated by apartmenttherapy.com!

In an online arti­cle titled “There’s an Art to Driving Past a Place You Used to Live — Here’s How to Master It,” author Brittany Anas assures that this nos­tal­gic behav­ior is not uncom­mon or unhealthy, but rec­om­mends prepa­ra­tion for the emo­tions it may trig­ger. She inter­views a fam­i­ly ther­a­pist for the piece, and shares her own —  and sev­er­al oth­er people’s — dri­ve-by expe­ri­ences, some with unan­tic­i­pat­ed out­comes. (https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/driving-past-old-home-36969514)

What a relief it is to know that Jeff and I aren’t the only ones out there creep­ing around, retrac­ing our steps, search­ing for... God only knows what?

In day-to-day liv­ing, I’m all for being in the now and look­ing toward the future, but I can’t imag­ine not tak­ing these occa­sion­al trips down mem­o­ry lane — stir­ring up old ghosts and recon­nect­ing with the places and emo­tions that formed me. While liv­ing in the past is almost nev­er advis­able, I’d high­ly rec­om­mend revis­it­ing it periodically.