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I am working my way through Wendell Berry’s magnificent Jayber Crow. I’m reading slowly, because this book is lyrical, quiet, and lovely, and I want to soak in every word. This turned out to be the perfect time for me to read this novel--this winter of so much worry and uncertainty, of so many things and people turned upside down, all counteracted by his story of a young man who returns home and takes me with him.

I have tried many times to write about home, about what it means and why it matters, and always felt I could only capture it in pieces--a moment here, a snatch of laughter there. Tonight, as I put down Jayber Crow and picked up this computer, I found a piece I wrote two winters ago from a wider vantage point that seems to be a good place to start in articulating what home means to me and why this particular book, set in my home state, echoes so sweetly in my soul.

I have lived in Kentucky for my whole life, but I haven’t always loved Kentucky as much as I do now. When I was younger, I was embarrassed that this state was my home. My family loved to travel, and when people found out where we were from, they might check our feet for shoes or compliment us on the great chicken. I’ll never forget a Florida cousin who let her boyfriend talk to me on the phone so he could find out what a southern person sounded like. How much farther south than Florida can you get?

In fact, when my college roommate said that she couldn’t imagine living away from the green, rolling hills of Kentucky, I was genuinely surprised. Until then, I hadn’t realized anyone actually chose to live here. I figured Kentucky was just the place most of us had ended up, and it was easier to live here than to go somewhere else. Believe me, I had big plans to get out. I was hazy on where I wanted to go, but I knew Kentucky would not be my permanent address.

Enter Joe, who, like my college roommate, could not picture a life lived out of our home state. When I fell in love with him, I really didn’t mind giving up my plans to live elsewhere. I didn’t hate Kentucky; it was just embarrassing, but it was the kind of embarrassing I was used to, kind of like my middle school pictures. I had memories here and people I loved. Kentucky was never my first choice, but Kentucky would do.

I didn’t imagine that I, too, could fall in love with Kentucky, after all those years.

My retirement dream is three months spent in places I love: New York, London, Paris, then some tiny British towns, sweeping southern cities, and a great beach town. But now I’d like to add three months in a tiny house nestled in a holler where I could watch the sun come up over the mountains, where I could walk out into my backyard barefoot at night to catch lightning bugs, where old women sit in camp chairs on their front yards, watching the day breathe out. I’d like three months back in Louisville, in the heart of the Highlands, where I could walk to Heine Brothers for morning coffee and wander down for Graeter’s ice cream at night. I want three months back on my grandfather’s farm, my face raised to catch the scent of hay and grass and livestock and life, with the echoes of gospel hymns from an old white country church in my ears.

My love for Kentucky came on gradually, and then all at once, like a really good book. The accent I once tried so hard to lose is now my favorite song, and I wouldn’t mind even a little bit if people knew me for my fried chicken, as long as I was using my grandmother’s recipe. Kentucky is the place where I’ve grown into a woman pretty satisfied with living in her own skin, and it’s where I’m raising a bookworm girl who loves to ride the four wheeler and eat french fries outside on a summer night at the local drive-in, and a wild boy who would sleep outside if we let him. My people are contradictory and fierce and kind and full of laughter, trying to work through the complication that is other people and trying to keep reaching for God. It’s how I want to be, how I hope I am. I stand on the green grass, the rich farm soil. With God’s help, I’ll keep standing right here.

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