I told him I would know it when I saw it. That might have been more convincing if I weren’t carsick, knew which direction we were driving, or could name any of the roads.
This was my first trip back in nearly a decade. I’d never come from another state and had only ever made the trek in the backseat of Dad’s truck. The GPS lost service somewhere in the curves and kudzu. The Toyota Camry groaned on the inclines. The roads twisted; my stomach followed. I pictured Mom handing me a Kroger bag as a kid, telling me to stick my hand out the window.
I cracked the windows to let the mountain air roll in as my boyfriend grew increasingly frustrated that I’d talked him into a two-hour drive to visit my family land in Eastern Kentucky.
“How will you know when we’re there?” he asked.
“I’ll just know.”
He didn’t like that answer. I’m not entirely sure I did either.
We call the land The Old Place. There’s no address. No sign, unless you count No Trespassing. If you’re part of the family, you don’t need directions. This land raised each generation as much as our parents did. But as the drive grew longer, I worried I wouldn’t recognize it. Or perhaps, it wouldn’t recognize me.
I held the entrance in my mind: rusted rail fence, oil tanks, gravel road. But nothing looked right. Even the trees had changed. I thought about telling him to turn around. Then, finally, we rounded a familiar bend.
“This is it,” I said.
“This?” he asked, clearly concerned we’d end up on the evening news if I was wrong.
The car slowed. Dad came into view, sitting atop my grandpa’s four-wheeler.
The Old Place doesn’t look like much. But it holds the story of my family—a tobacco barn without doors, a corn crib we camp in, a rock in the river called Tea Table, where an uncle drowned nearly a century ago. Bringing my boyfriend here meant showing him something I’d never shown to anyone before him: where I come from, even if it looked like nothing at all.
We’ve been married five years now and visit The Old Place more than I did as a kid. It’s our generation’s turn to maintain the land that has always maintained the family.
If I were to tell the story now, I’d say I navigated the drive by pure instinct. Probably not true—but I bet I could manage if the GPS went out again.
I just know that when the gravel crunched under the tires that day, I felt it. A quiet certainty that I—no, we—were home. | 
