Day 1

Day 1: In Tel Aviv complete with my own little mattress, pillow, and sleeping bag. I forgot how foreign everything feels here. How the distance really hits you and makes you sweat. Searching for strength, all while realizing how much of yourself you have lost.

Katrien and I took a walk to get myself acquainted with the neighborhood. I forgot how big Tel Aviv is or maybe never knew. Only the city center --the streets of King George, Dizengoff, Allenby remain firmly implanted in my memories of living in Tel Aviv.

It feels like the first time in a lot of ways. Words jump out and bite me with their familiarity, but I still have trouble placing them. The white block street signs with their black letters, directing you in Hebrew, English, or Arabic. The dirt that coats the streets and gathers under your feet like chalk.

I know I am far away from rural Amherst, Massachusetts and even further away from my home in Kanas City. I'm trying desperately to unscramble my brain and figure out what I'm doing here. There is so much fear built-up beneath my skin. My body and brain keep screaming at me, "Run back to the train station...Run home...Run and regress!"

It is difficult because until the night hours of Sunday November 1, I never thought I would be alone here or alone at all. I had forgotten how to be alone. What it means and how it feels to be abandoned by the one warm body you thought you knew and loved. Things change so suddenly and our brains fight with such fervor to resist it. We want so much to run back to the nook. I can't help missing his body. The way my head felt when it laid on his chest or how my body curled into his.

I don't want to be damaged and broken. I hate this lost scared feeling. I keep trying to fight it. I want to focus on my studies or something less terrifying. So while my brain is walled off to the world only sounds creep in. The children playing in the park across the street. The scooters, car horns, traffic flowing from the highway, buses humming past, engines stalling are all signs of a city --I city that scares me, but it's only a city.

All the windows have bars, so you couldn't jump if you tried. The blue sky and blinding sun together they make a natural kind of heat. The kind that reminds you that you are alive and there is blood in your veins traveling from head to limbs and back again.