Nov. 10, 2005
I am finally going home. The last time I went home was at some point in July, and before that it was for a couple of days during December break last year. Working at the restaurant, I wasn’t able to take any extended vacations or to go home on the weekends. So now that I’ve had more time, I’m taking advantage of it. Thanks to Veterans’ Day, I get to see my mom.
I love going home. I used to go home a lot more when I lived in Boston and Providence. The drive up 95 and 93 through Boston was always long and congested with traffic, but I don’t think I ever minded it. I loved going over (and under) the city; signs for China Town as I enter the tunnel; past Faneuil Hall on the left, the North End and Hanover Street on the right; past Bunker Hill and the Museum of Science. Sometimes I could see the USS Constitution. But I think my favorite sight was the skyline — ‚Äùnight, day, early in the morning as the sun’s just coming up over the horizon, anytime. The Boston skyline is one of the most beautiful sights to me. I remember when I drove back from Mississippi in late August seven years ago. Late afternoon, I’m going north on 93, around one of the many curves of the interstate, and there it is: the Prudential and the Hancock towers, all lit up and warm, reflecting in the sun. I put on a Guster CD and knew I was coming home.
The only other place I feel that strongly about is, of course, my home in Vermont. Landmarks along the way mark my approach and I no longer need to look at the time to judge how soon I’ll be home.
Exit 1 — White River Junction: My mom used to pick me up there when I took the bus from Boston; she’d meet me at the Vermont Transit station usually late at night, and we’d spend the hour and a half home talking about college or boyfriends or family. Or I’d just sleep.
Exit 2 — ‚ÄùMy best friend Drew and I once went to a Mormon museum — ‚Äùthe Joseph Smith birthplace — ‚Äùon the spur of the moment on our way back to Boston one spring. He took a picture of me standing next to a statue of, I think, Joseph Smith. We were the only visitors.
Exit 4 is Randolph where every year in high school, the Student Council would attend a meeting of all student councils in the state. I once ran for vice president of the Vermont state student council and I had to give a speech to a roomful of my peers. I lost. Big time. I tried running for a second position and got turned down for that, too. Not many good memories there.
Exits 5, 6, 7,8 go by quickly for me because they’re fewer than five miles apart from each other. Montpelier, the state capital, is one of those exits, though I can never remember which one. I once bought a pair of earrings at a store in Montpelier that hurt so much when I put them in I could never wear them. They were orange. It was probably a good thing I could never wear them.
Exits 9 and 10 are five and ten miles apart from each other, respectively. I forget about exit 9, but exit 10 has the Ben and Jerry’s factory and my mom’s friends, Tex and Diane.
Between Exit 10 and my exit, 11, there are 15 miles. Just when I think I’m getting closer — ‚Äùonly one more exit! — ‚Äùthere’s a 15 minute wait. But there’s one bridge I drive under that lets me know I’m only two miles away, and I call it the Welcome Home bridge. If I look over the edge of the highway to the left, I can almost see my siblings’ house where they grew up in Richmond. The day after I graduated from high school, my brother Tommy took me on his motorcycle over the Welcome Home and it pretty much convinced me that motorcycles aren’t for me.
When I went home this summer, I opened my windows as I approached Exit 11. It had just rained and I could smell the warmth from the air and the moisture from the ground. Almost nothing smells better than coming home — ‚Äùfresh dirt, green leaves, a warm summer night wind. No music, just the sound of crickets as I try to drive the speed limit down Governor Peck road toward Browns Trace. The hills on both sides of the road wrap me up and guide me home. A wide, 25 mile-per-hour turn around the center green in Jericho, near the general store where I used to work — ‚Äùwhere I’d sell everything from fresh meat to lottery tickets to spark plugs and movie rentals — ‚Äù near my first friend Sara Davis’s little yellow house, near the library I used to call my own (literally). Past the four-room white school house with red doors that was mine for 3rd and 4th grades. Jeff Palmer had a concussion and threw up in Mrs. Davis’ classroom after getting kicked in the head by mistake as he walked in front of Amelia while she was on the swing set in back of the school. The fire station is on the left. In the winter before Christmas, they put a huge star above the station, white lights. Down the big hill between two wide pastures — ‚Äùthe one on the left has cows, the one on the right has bales of hay. A left onto my road. My road follows the Lee River, winding around just as the water does. It’s a shallow river, but in the spring it can sometimes threaten to flood the fields that line it.
Across from the streetlight on the right that marks Sky View Drive is my house. It’s a curving driveway and usually I can see some lights on somewhere inside. I hear the tires crunch over our pebble drive, and I put the car into coast and I know I’m home.
How is it that place becomes so important to us? I wonder if there will ever be another place on earth that I’ll know this well, that can ever make me feel this good and calm. A place that I’ll be able to visualize and smell even though I’m hundreds of miles away. I wonder if maybe I’ve already driven through that place, or if it’s a place I think I’ll never go. And is it going to be a place I have to create for myself, or will I just know when I get there? Whatever the case, this time tomorrow night, I’ll be under the Welcome Home.