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"There was this one day when I was eleven," he starts He’s not staring out to the ocean or looking anywhere else, distracted He’s looking right intothis story is forhide-and-seek with my friends I mean, the brutal tackle kind of hide-and-seek We were in the woods, and for some reason I decided that what I had to do was climb a tree I don’t think I’d ever climbed a tree before But I found one with so Up and up It was as natural as walking In my memory, that tree was hundreds of feet tall Thousands At so, but there weren’t any other trees around I was all byway froical There’s no other word to describe it I could hear ame played out But I was in a co the world fro when it happens for the first time I’d never flown in a plane I’ So there I was, hovering above everything I knew I had otten there all on iven it to me Nobody had told me to do it I’d climbed and climbed and climbed, and this was my reward To watch over the world, and to be alone with myself That, I found, hat I needed"

I’ hi about when he was little, but not like this Usually he only tells s Mostly as an excuse

I lean into hi"

"Yeah, it was"

"And it was in Minnesota?"

I want to show him I remember what he tells me--his family’s moves, how cold it was there--so he’ll feel he can tell me more

I want to tell him more, too I alant to tell hi--itdifferent

"You want to know another day like this one?" I ask,a nest of our bodies in order to catch all the memories

He pulls me in, settles the nest "Sure"

"Our second date," I tell him

"Really?" He seems surprised

"Remember?"

He doesn’t Which is fair, because it’s not like we labeled everything as a date I mean, there were plenty of times before our first date where ere in the sa about the second tiether and spent ether