I am at my dad's place in the woods. He comes in from letting the dog out and says, come here, motioning for me to get my shoes on. His apartment is above his landlord's garage, an old mechanic's outfit. I follow him down the stairs, into the garage, and look out the square window in the door. There is a baby bird on the wood plank entryway. There is a nest in the eaves of the entryway covering. My dad has been watching the baby bird's parents bring it bugs for a few days. ..

You are at the travel agency where your grandma works a few days a week. It is a close to your house and you visit her after school sometimes. You are in fifth grade. She is at her desk and gets up to greet you with a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze on both upper arms. You can feel the imprint of her hands for a few seconds after she sits back down. She is wearing a blue dress with a thin red belt. She always looks sharp. Her cap of red hair makes her look Scottish. Which she is. 

You notice a tall, dark, homeless man approaching people at the bus stop for spare change. Everyone before you shakes their head no, most people don’t even look up from their newspapers or magazines. When he gets to you, the last in line, you look him in the eye and smile (you are from the midwest). You pull a fistful of quarters from your pocket — laundry money — there is so much change that he has to cup his hands to receive it all. 

I learned from my grandmother how to be excited. How to be alive. How to sparkle.  
I learned what it looks like to make people feel like they matter.  
I learned that you can listen to the radio all night long and that at midnight when the station goes off the air, the static will be comforting.  

My burrito comes down the line and as I am paying for my food, I notice the cashier looking off behind me while she takes my cash. She is preoccupied and scoops too many chips into the bowl on my red plastic tray. She is transfixed by a man and his ten or eleven year old daughter who looks like she has been crying. 

When you grow up somewhere small and slow and out of the way, somewhere abundant with lakes and trees and animals, and hunter's orange and work boots and trucks, somewhere hours north of where important and dramatic and fast things happen, it will be a big deal when your English teacher introduces you to Jim Harrison — who writes about nearby places like yours, places you know.

Buy a plane ticket. Rent a car. Pack warm clothes.

Weep in the airport.

Drive north for an hour and a half. Decide to take the route home around the lake instead of through downtown. Nod to the diner you waitressed (and bussed, and hosted, and dishwashed) at in high school. Turn up the radio. Let the memories flood.

Oh Matt Dillon, my Matt Dillon. You and I could have such a life together. Forget that I am twelve and fresh out of Franklin Elementary School in Cadillac, Michigan. Forget that you are a Hollywood heartthrob and can drive a car and smoke and walk around with your shirt off. Forget that we are basically different species.

I guess the idea to get into body building started because Mr. Burkholz showed us the movie Helter Skelter during personal finance class. Which was weird and ended up getting him in trouble. But, I wanted to learn more about Charlie Manson after that, so I got the Helter Skelter book from the library on the way home from school. 

Ever since the incident at the dinner table at the youth hostel, I can't stand the sound. Not just the sound, but the person attached to the sound. I just heard it. Three rows back, by the window. There he is. The guy clipping his fingernails. What’s his deal? Looks techie, maybe in his late thirties, early forties, probably upper management.