Meeting Strangers

My week alone in Venice: I haven't been lonely.

The first day, I forced myself not to take any books or postcards or props out with me when I went to a local taverna. I people watched for ages, but nobody really spoke to me.

It made a nice change, though, at first.

After that, every time I wrote my journal, or a card, or read my book, someone came and chatted to me. I didn't eat alone ever. It was hard to concentrate at times.

It wasn't intrusive, though. Most people don't even want to know your name. They want two or three decent anecdotes and the feeling that they've travelled, that they've met someone.

Only once did I feel depressed or lonely. And that just wasn't true, frankly. I decided to deal with it by walking from one end of Venice to the other. At the end, I felt depressed, lonely, and footsore.
But then someone else invited me to share dinner, and to be honest I forgot about it.

I guess you get black moods everywhere.