carry me back to Virginia

Thanksgiving found us traveling north to get to The South.

(Actually – we drove north, directionally.  Only north.  And east.  But no five years of South Carolina living can convince me that Virginia isn’t more southern than this state that boasts the name “south” in its title.)

Anyway.

We headed to the farm.

And – like always – nostalgia washed over me the very instant our maroon shuttle ascended the ridge through the woods.

It’s the driveway.

It gets me every time.

When I was fifteen

and at passenger-only status

I loved this driveway.

When I was sixteen

and driving my brother’s hand-me-down silver hatchback Toyota Tercel

I’d stop at the beginning of the driveway

and I’d breathe.

Twenty

baby-sitting on summer breaks from college

I’d imagine living on this farm just to call this driveway mine.

Newlywed at twenty-two

pulling into the driveway after a day’s labor at my first official post-college-diploma job as a reporter at The Smith Mountain Eagle

I’d catch my breath driving through the woods

sunlight barely breaking through

sighing at how lucky I was to call this home for a few months.

Twenty-five.

Driving through the green woods bursting with spring

gravel crunching under the tires of my own blue Toyota Tercel

pulling into the driveway and once again calling this farm home.

Ten years more of daily driveway driving.

I have never been tired of it.

Its charm has never been lost on me.

I always sigh

of the good variety

breathe in gasps of air

roll down my window.

Drink it in and eat it up with gulps.

It’s a driveway long enough to Leave Behind and Enter In.

It’s served as a passage.

A calming lane.

Putting Off and Putting On.

It’s more than a driveway.

It’s a symbol.

Every year we make a pilgrimage or two back.

And every time I love cresting that tiny hill around the slight curve.

There isn’t a season that doesn’t please me.

There isn’t a trip I haven’t been grateful to be, even for a few days or a few minutes,

alive on a piece of road as lovely and as meaningful to me as this driveway is.

It’s always been more to me than a road through the woods.