Riding in the Backseat with my Brother

There is a certain magic that comes from falling asleep in the backseat and waking up far away. Like fairies, we were transported to a new world, and when that world ended a short time later, we found another one to take its place. We knew it was time to leave when we saw the familiar orange and white U-Haul trailer parked outside our house. Like an echo of past events, all five of us would jam into the car, our familial womb, and wait for the next stop. When I was young, I saw the world differently than my schoolmates. I saw the world while bouncing around in the backseat of a black, overloaded Hudson. Three kids, two parents, three cats, and sometimes a dog. That was us, settling in one place for as little as two weeks or as long as nine months. Never a year. My lineage of distant relatives, some called gypsies, wanderers, or Irish Travelers, had not skipped this generation altogether. As we bounced across the country, sucking up the sounds, smells, and sights of new places, the events along the way formed us.