I've been serving birthday parties at the entertainment center for hours, I haven't made much, if any, money. When I approach the computer terminals at the end of the bowling lanes, the birthday party hosts are standing in a group. Erin is typing in their tips--they get tipped by the party--and I am bored out of my mind. Most of the hosts are 19 or younger, but Erin is probably in her twenties--early to mid, I'd guess. She listens to me. I know, because she has responded in the past.

"Is there something wrong with me that only girls hit on me here?" I ask aloud, hopeful that someone will hear the question. I've been here for three or four hours, with almost nothing to do, and thoughts can make a person go crazy after too much quiet. One of the girls, she is maybe 4'9" and dark-skinned, laughs without sound, or at least quietly enough that she cannot be heard over the raging birthday music in the background ("What's the Fox Say?" and today we are also playing "Oops, I Did it Again," and "The Way You Love Me," by Faith Hill). Erin is too busy to respond. "I mean, they offer to buy me shots, give me their numbers...why doesn't that happen with the guys?"

This happened at Cracker Barrel too. I had this table of three women, all overweight and mostly quiet. Two appeared my age or younger, in their twenties or teens. The one with highlights in her black hair kept glaring at me, and I was feeling a bit nervous. But when I returned, she had left the table, and the woman across from her seat handed me a folded piece of paper, saying, "My sister wanted me to give this to you."

Inside was a phone number. Apparently what I had assumed was glaring, were really looks of longing. I kept the phone number, as I kept all notes received from serving at Idaho Rocky Mountain Ranch, Olive Garden, Roosevelt Lodge, and now, the entertainment center.

I keep the notes and tack them up individually, on the bedroom wall where my calendar is. I am a note guardian. Some of these notes feel like secrets; but most are acts of humanity. They remind me that people can be kind, and that they are grateful, sweet, and giving. I have many religious notes, (Cracker Barrel is big on Christian visitors), telling me to find god if I haven't been saved, and some offering me warm food and a place to sleep, should I ever need it: Fellowship, it's called.

I even keep the angry notes, where people write what a terrible server I am, and what a horrible person. It isn't my masochism, or a way for me to laugh at them. I keep them, I think, because I want to acknowledge that they have spoken. I might not like what they say, but I have heard them. Maybe there is no one else for them to speak to, or yell at; maybe they work and live in places where they are silenced, and told that their thoughts and feelings don't matter. At the entertainment center, I understand this all too well. So I keep the notes. I listen.  

The man crossing the Golden Gate Bridge is carrying a staff with a bear carved into the top. The bear wears a serious expression: his mouth set in a straight line, eyes facing forward, skinny body straight like a man. The bear is cute. The man has flyaway hair, a nice complexion, and a backpacker's pack over his shoulders.

A thousand questions, I have. But I shouldn't ask--I'm in San Francisco on a solo mission of exploration. I don't want to talk to people, just watch and write and take pictures.

But I want to know his story.

"Hey," I say, "Where are you from? Where are you going?"

Meet Miguel. He has hiked roughly 808 miles from his home of Seattle, Wa. to here, good ole' San Fran. Once I start talking to Miguel, my solo trip in the city has all but ended. We go to the hostel on a great hill to find him a place to sleep, but there are no rooms available. We sit on the couch in the waiting room and he shares an avacado with bread and hummus with me. It's deliciously simple. We decide to explore some of downtown.

I show him the shop of lovely horrors, which I have fallen in love with. There are skulls of many sizes, and the little bodies of stuffed mice dressed in doll's clothes, standing in miniature kitchens, and sitting on doll couches.

Down the street, we find a gothic church whose steeples touch the sky, where the ceilings are so high as to make one's neck ache from leaning it back so far to see into the abyss. There are statues and stained glass windows, and it is dark. Miguel sits on the carved wooden chair, the back of it reaching to at least four feet about his head, and he appears regal with his dark beard and the staff clutched in his fist.

In the churchyard is a labyrinth. He leads as we walk from the outside inward. He tells me to focus, take my time, be at peace. Once we reach the center, we move from the inside out, going through it all over again.

Miguel has hiked most of his way here, taking rides from strangers sparingly. He left behind a good job to take this journey, to rediscover himself and what he wants out of life. The teddy bear staff was a gift from an old man, to protect my friend on his walk. He stayed with a woman in Portland, Or. for a few days, and she bought him a bus ticket to get him some of the way to where he is now. Later, a woman he stays with downtown will buy him another ticket to return to Portland. Miguel is on his way back to where he came from.