23 kilos of life and 10 extra ones of just-in-case hand luggage bounced in the trunk of the taxi. I was leaving home. No, not Home. A home. This was just one of the many roofs I had lived under for the past twenty-three years. The real Home, the one I was really leaving, was made up of four parts that had travelled with me, from roof to roof, for the past twenty-three years. One of them sat nervously in the seat next to mine, frowning at the million worries flashing through her mind.
Mum pulled out her phone out of her bag and held it far enough from her glasses for the symbols on the screen to make sense. There was a time in which she had strongly objected to carrying those glasses like a necklace. I will not go around with them all day like a granny. Now, they hung proudly down her neck, ready to be used at any time of the day.
I stared out the window and focused on the white markings of the road. As the taxi moved, the lines seemed to move with it, and blurred into a continuous line, a never-ending line I had been seeing my entire life. The straight line, the road to somewhere new, the road away from everything I had spent a considerable amount of time getting used to. Eight years in Madrid, in what was expected to be my hometown, had caused no sense of attachment or sinking feeling of loss as the taxi took me away from it. And why would it?
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who go and those who stay. I was never part of the latter. The idea of spending a substantial amount of my life in one place where I would eventually run out of things to explore, things to discover, was a frightening one. For as long as I could remember, travel was a recurring occurrence. Normality was being on the road, in the middle seat of a car and surrounded by those four parts that make up my concept of home. Normality was staring out the window and watching, for hours sometimes, those white markings on the road, that blurry, white line.
Travelling with Mum was a strange feeling. Dad was already waiting at the other side of the journey, but it was my siblings I wouldn’t be travelling away with. It was unsettling, like losing the last pieces of a complicated puzzle. It wasn’t the actual leaving that was unsettling. It wasn’t even the thought of somewhere new and unknown, or the thought of not knowing when I would come back. Unsettling was being in a moving car and not being in the middle seat.
I always sat in the middle seat, between the two of them. That’s the way it had been, and that’s the way it continued to be, even when I outgrew my sister, even when the three of us were too big to share the back of the car. I was subject to that unwritten law that places the youngest child in the family at the end of the line when any decision is to be made.
Why do I always have to sit in the middle?
Why do I have to set the table?
Why do I have to take out the trash?
Because you were born last.
I gladly assumed this position. I wasn’t much of a fighter. You learn not to be when your brother effortlessly picks you up and puts you back down somewhere else for the fun of it. I was used to these long car journeys into a new, unexplored land and didn’t think much more of it. I didn’t worry, I didn’t get the post-traumatic anxiety some kids go through when they’re pulled away from everything known to them. I didn’t get excited, either. I just went along with it. I assumed it was normal to live like this, and I was fine with it. Now, most of what I recall from my childhood isn’t linked to the homes we lived in, or the schools I went to. Most of my childhood happened in that middle seat of the car. Most of my childhood, as I recall it, involved endless hours of watching that white blurry line on the edge of the road to Anywhere.
Twenty-three years later, I still found myself in a car watching that blurry, white line. I could still recall hours of daydreaming, of constant boredom. I could still recall the astonishing ability I had to zone out as a child and mentally mute my brother’s deep voice screaming over my left ear at my sister on the other side. Even then, I liked being in my own little world. I liked taking imaginary trips into a world entirely my own. These journeys, however, never lasted long. They were often interrupted by my sister’s arm flying in my direction towards my brother with nothing but bad intentions. At this point I would duck. After a few journeys like this, I saw a pattern and knew what was to be done. Duck. Cover head and ears, and wait for it to be over. At some point, my mother’s words would ring in a high-pitched cry that would echo around the car.
“¡Ya está bien!” (Enough!)
Then, there was an overwhelming silence, a beautiful silence, in which everyone looked in a different direction and made no eye contact and no movement. It was a moment of tension in which a million little atomic bombs threatened to go off inside each of them. It was the moment of peace in which I emerged from my own little world, concealed between my arms and legs. I would watch them all and smile, completely unaware and clueless of what was going on. My mother, en guarde, occasionally looked back and gave a threatening look that spoke for itself. My brother’s body inclined as much as possible towards his window, as if he were considering jumping out, and my sister’s did exactly the same, towards the opposite side. In those moments of high tension, I was a happy child. I suddenly found myself with a lot more personal space in the middle seat. I would often watch Dad at this stage, through the rear mirror as he drove, just as quiet and just as calm as I felt. He had grown used to these sudden outbursts of emotion, just as I would in time. As silence settled in the car, I would look out the window and resume my careful study of that strange, blurry, white line. I never wondered what our destination would be like, or if I would ever go back to the place we were leaving. At this age, I had other more pressing matters. Chocolate. New crayons. And my next Play-Doh masterpiece. The important stuff.
Between the mesmerising, blurry, white line and all those complicated thoughts, my eye-lids would drop and my tired body would naturally fall on my brother's side. Shortly after, I would feel my sister’s head on my small body, and in my strange semiconscious state I would assume my position as the centre piece of a rather odd puzzle of open, drooling mouths and occasional snoring. Sometimes, a –snap!– would wake me from this strange state, and as I opened my eyes for a brief moment, I would get a glimpse of my mother behind a camera, with a smile on her face that suggested she had just caught a heard of sleeping foxes and hounds perfectly at peace with each other.
“¿Llevas todo?” (Have you got everything?)
I glide my stare away from the blurry, white line and back into the taxi, about twenty years later. I stare at her. What a stupid question, I thought. We’re halfway to the airport, if there’s something I’ve forgotten there’s not much we could do about it. I decide not to explain the illogicality of the question and give her the answer she wants to hear.
“Llevo todo.” (I have everything.)
As she turned to look through the window, I saw her staring at the white line, and wondered if her thoughts aligned with mine. I was leaving home, every part of it. I was, for the first time, travelling without being a part of that five-piece puzzle I had known for twenty-three years. I was about to start a new puzzle of my own. I turned back towards my window and smiled, because whichever puzzle I became a part of now, I’d always be a piece of this one.
Mum pulled out her phone out of her bag and held it far enough from her glasses for the symbols on the screen to make sense. There was a time in which she had strongly objected to carrying those glasses like a necklace. I will not go around with them all day like a granny. Now, they hung proudly down her neck, ready to be used at any time of the day.
I stared out the window and focused on the white markings of the road. As the taxi moved, the lines seemed to move with it, and blurred into a continuous line, a never-ending line I had been seeing my entire life. The straight line, the road to somewhere new, the road away from everything I had spent a considerable amount of time getting used to. Eight years in Madrid, in what was expected to be my hometown, had caused no sense of attachment or sinking feeling of loss as the taxi took me away from it. And why would it?
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who go and those who stay. I was never part of the latter. The idea of spending a substantial amount of my life in one place where I would eventually run out of things to explore, things to discover, was a frightening one. For as long as I could remember, travel was a recurring occurrence. Normality was being on the road, in the middle seat of a car and surrounded by those four parts that make up my concept of home. Normality was staring out the window and watching, for hours sometimes, those white markings on the road, that blurry, white line.
Travelling with Mum was a strange feeling. Dad was already waiting at the other side of the journey, but it was my siblings I wouldn’t be travelling away with. It was unsettling, like losing the last pieces of a complicated puzzle. It wasn’t the actual leaving that was unsettling. It wasn’t even the thought of somewhere new and unknown, or the thought of not knowing when I would come back. Unsettling was being in a moving car and not being in the middle seat.
I always sat in the middle seat, between the two of them. That’s the way it had been, and that’s the way it continued to be, even when I outgrew my sister, even when the three of us were too big to share the back of the car. I was subject to that unwritten law that places the youngest child in the family at the end of the line when any decision is to be made.
Why do I always have to sit in the middle?
Why do I have to set the table?
Why do I have to take out the trash?
Because you were born last.
I gladly assumed this position. I wasn’t much of a fighter. You learn not to be when your brother effortlessly picks you up and puts you back down somewhere else for the fun of it. I was used to these long car journeys into a new, unexplored land and didn’t think much more of it. I didn’t worry, I didn’t get the post-traumatic anxiety some kids go through when they’re pulled away from everything known to them. I didn’t get excited, either. I just went along with it. I assumed it was normal to live like this, and I was fine with it. Now, most of what I recall from my childhood isn’t linked to the homes we lived in, or the schools I went to. Most of my childhood happened in that middle seat of the car. Most of my childhood, as I recall it, involved endless hours of watching that white blurry line on the edge of the road to Anywhere.
Twenty-three years later, I still found myself in a car watching that blurry, white line. I could still recall hours of daydreaming, of constant boredom. I could still recall the astonishing ability I had to zone out as a child and mentally mute my brother’s deep voice screaming over my left ear at my sister on the other side. Even then, I liked being in my own little world. I liked taking imaginary trips into a world entirely my own. These journeys, however, never lasted long. They were often interrupted by my sister’s arm flying in my direction towards my brother with nothing but bad intentions. At this point I would duck. After a few journeys like this, I saw a pattern and knew what was to be done. Duck. Cover head and ears, and wait for it to be over. At some point, my mother’s words would ring in a high-pitched cry that would echo around the car.
“¡Ya está bien!” (Enough!)
Then, there was an overwhelming silence, a beautiful silence, in which everyone looked in a different direction and made no eye contact and no movement. It was a moment of tension in which a million little atomic bombs threatened to go off inside each of them. It was the moment of peace in which I emerged from my own little world, concealed between my arms and legs. I would watch them all and smile, completely unaware and clueless of what was going on. My mother, en guarde, occasionally looked back and gave a threatening look that spoke for itself. My brother’s body inclined as much as possible towards his window, as if he were considering jumping out, and my sister’s did exactly the same, towards the opposite side. In those moments of high tension, I was a happy child. I suddenly found myself with a lot more personal space in the middle seat. I would often watch Dad at this stage, through the rear mirror as he drove, just as quiet and just as calm as I felt. He had grown used to these sudden outbursts of emotion, just as I would in time. As silence settled in the car, I would look out the window and resume my careful study of that strange, blurry, white line. I never wondered what our destination would be like, or if I would ever go back to the place we were leaving. At this age, I had other more pressing matters. Chocolate. New crayons. And my next Play-Doh masterpiece. The important stuff.
Between the mesmerising, blurry, white line and all those complicated thoughts, my eye-lids would drop and my tired body would naturally fall on my brother's side. Shortly after, I would feel my sister’s head on my small body, and in my strange semiconscious state I would assume my position as the centre piece of a rather odd puzzle of open, drooling mouths and occasional snoring. Sometimes, a –snap!– would wake me from this strange state, and as I opened my eyes for a brief moment, I would get a glimpse of my mother behind a camera, with a smile on her face that suggested she had just caught a heard of sleeping foxes and hounds perfectly at peace with each other.
“¿Llevas todo?” (Have you got everything?)
I glide my stare away from the blurry, white line and back into the taxi, about twenty years later. I stare at her. What a stupid question, I thought. We’re halfway to the airport, if there’s something I’ve forgotten there’s not much we could do about it. I decide not to explain the illogicality of the question and give her the answer she wants to hear.
“Llevo todo.” (I have everything.)
As she turned to look through the window, I saw her staring at the white line, and wondered if her thoughts aligned with mine. I was leaving home, every part of it. I was, for the first time, travelling without being a part of that five-piece puzzle I had known for twenty-three years. I was about to start a new puzzle of my own. I turned back towards my window and smiled, because whichever puzzle I became a part of now, I’d always be a piece of this one.