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The suggested theme for this exercise was not trusting the strangers - based on the commandment in the Torah: “Do not oppress the stranger.” We had about a half hour for this one and I hemmed, hawed, and hedged for most of it, until when I had five or ten minutes left I came up with this:

I’m a stranger every day. When I walk into a store for the first time, I’m judged by the storekeeper, she looks at my sweaty face and my untied shoes and calls me slacker in her mind. She wouldn’t say that about her son, or her husband. But I’m a stranger so it’s ok. My strangerness is what makes her love with her husband or her sister something special, so it’s ok.

When I raise my hand in class to ask a question, I know that no one else is asking my question. So I mumble it or say it really fast or keep my eyes down on the table so I don’t have to see how the people in the room are looking at me. They’re all so comfortable, so belonging. The moment they see me there’s a separation. There’s them and there’s me. I’m a stranger because I don’t know what the cab driver is asking me, because I don’t know how to cash a check in the bank. When I walk around I know that I’m not wearing the same kind of clothes as the people here, the ones that belong. But I can’t tell exactly what it is about my clothes that’s so different – I guess that’s part of what makes me a stranger.

Then I go home, and I’m not a stranger there. My cat is there and my sofa and my conical glass mug with the handle that’s just a little too small – they’re mine, I know them and they know me. We trust each other and we know all our little foibles, that’s the place where the love sits. So when I go outside again tomorrow to be a stranger again, it’ll only be for a while, only for the day, until I go home - so it’s ok.

I noted some feedback:

• C: mix between mature and immature voice the middle flowed better
• I: liked “the place where the love sits”
• E: repetition of being a stranger. Show it instead of stating it.
• S: this is similar in feel to the thunder piece but has an added dimension – more contrast to another voice. Scratched the surface.
• J: it got rushed to an ending. The time constraint could be felt at the end. Feel free to let things dangle – otherwise you might cut something off.