As it turns out, you can go home again, whether you want to or not.

My first pilgrimage to the neighborhood where I spent my elementary school years over spring break was deliberate.

After I passed it another dozen times or so, though, I started to wonder why I was so inexplicably drawn to a place I thought had nothing to offer but some wonderfully innocent memories.

I rented a car for part of our stay in Washington, D.C., to give us flexibility to go beyond the limits of the Metro. It also made it easy to revisit my old stomping grounds in Arlington, Va.

I spent a lot of time trying to find a place to U-turn, switch directions on the freeway or pull over to look at directions. The one place I felt I knew exactly where I was happened to be in a subdivision full of red brick buildings that all looked remarkably similar.

The kids, who probably assumed we were lost again, were incredulous when I stopped the car and announced we had arrived.

"Were you rich?" my son asked with awe as he looked at the rental I lived in at his age. It took me a few beats to understand why he asked. The kids have seen townhouses before, but not ones that blend together so seamlessly.

Standing next to my former bedroom window, I didn't feel directionally challenged at all as I resisted the urge to run to the grate that once trapped a classmate's binder, the "suicide hill" everyone headed to on snow days and the tennis court where I got over my fear of cooties.

I spared my children and got back into the car to show them my last and best elementary school, pointing out where I was shot by a BB gun, and taking a moment of silence to contemplate the school track I'd hated more than math class.

All told, I'd be surprised if we spent much longer than 20 minutes in Fairlington, but over the next few days we passed the subdivision again and again as I tried to make sense of the Capitol Beltway and its bloody interchanges. It got to the point where every time I veered off course, I'd find the Quaker Lane off-ramp ahead — a sign that couldn't have seemed more mocking if it was flashing, "You are going the wrong way!"

It didn't occur to me then that the sign was as handy as a "You are here" arrow on a map. It offered enough familiarity for me to get my bearings and (hopefully) head in the right direction.