Walmart, Carl’s Jr., Costco, Target, an expanse of land dotted with carbon copy cream and gray homes between paved lanes. Repeat. This is the scene of coming home. All this repetition against those majestic rocks — how did I ever take them for granted? Luminous and surreal, like a two-dimensional screen lit from behind. But, thankfully, their jagged ridges and soft slopes are very real.

This cadence continues for miles until the car leaves the highway and heads west. Longer expanses of land, matching homes replaced by big wooden barns, long porches, fence posts and four-legged livestock. I know this song by heart.  

The colors warm, aided by the golden hay and unobstructed sunbeams. Then, the smell. I swear to god, there is nothing in this world that smells more like home to me, than the scent of birch bark mixed with the perfume of fresh manure.

It occurred to me today that growing up here I was too engrossed in my internal landscape to notice the quiet beauty everywhere. A reason enough for anyone to leave home, I guess.

Finally, we approach the stone and stucco house I grew up in and take the 45-degree turn necessary to avoid sliding into the treacherous ditches flanking the narrow drive. My dad and my mom’s dad laid the rock on this house. The granite came straight from those mountains and was split open by my Grandpa Jed. The plot of land, a wedding gift to my parents from my Great Grandma Addie, sits surrounded by many — don’t ask me how many, I barely mowed the lawn growing up — acres of once very active farmland, the family farm.  At one time this land teemed with activity and that signature manure scent. Before I was born, these fields were covered by tractors and men in denim, harvesting a plethora of crops. Now, it’s strictly corn and hay rotation, mostly for feed for the local dairy farm heifers.

I made it home thanks to my Uncle Tim, my mom’s brother, who works for the airline. The funeral is on Friday. I will help move my mom move out of this house on Wednesday.

Preparing myself for some emotional excavations.