How to Talk to Strangers, Pt. 1

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For one month, I could rent an apartment in Tel Aviv. Go out to the beach, to the shops, to the parks and the restaurants. I could keep to myself, only coming and going, making no friends, no new acquaintances. Always alone. Cooking dinner. Gazing out the window during breakfast. Always rising early but not knowing why except to do it. And I could scribble, scribble, scribble in my journal, just like this, accomplishing only an awareness of my own feelings, desires, and shortcomings. At the end of the month, as if I had never been there, I would put my belongings back into my trunk, leave a handwritten note for the landlady to say todah rabah, then leave.

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