From the depths

Winter has come on mighty strong here in Shanghai. The freeze of mid-January requires masochistic tendency; forcing oneself to venture out into it, to go about necessary errands that would otherwise be quite leisurely and pleasurable. The inescapable demands of city life do not allow for the hibernation permitted in rural areas during these months when life really should be nothing more than suspended animation. In this dead winter, the sun rises later and disappears into the horizon far too soon. Fewer people linger on sidewalks, at bus stops, outside cafes. There is set determination on the faces of those passing by. Determined to escape from the cold. A hopeless determination because the cold in Shanghai permeates everything.

I am sitting at my kitchen window, drinking a hot cup of tea while watching a stray cat hunt birds on the roof ledge of the neighboring building. Its ragged white fur feigning warmth and survival. Even I can feel the cold air seeping through poorly insulated windows.

Everyone seems to have lost energy. Seems to have lost that essential life force. Seems to have lost the rosy optimism that warm weather brings. A bleakness has surrounded life in the city. Like watching someone scream through a soundproof window. As if there were a mute button for this metropolis. Everything is more lethargic and more urgent, simultaneously.

For me, each day passes with contentment and melancholy in equal parts. I am contented and thankful to have the life I have here in Shanghai, and it is precisely that happiness that makes me sad. It’s a happiness tinged with sadness emanating from transience. I know that I will not live here forever; I know that this life on the other side must end eventually. The spectrum of lives more fulfilling than the one I live now is so narrow, I assume it to be an impossibility to actually achieve.

Each bike or taxi ride into the city—from the depths of the south where I live, to the commercial heaven that is Xujiahue, to the quaint meanderings of French Concession alleys, to the Communist glory that is People’s Square—takes on a new nostalgia, as I recall all the wonderful times I’ve had in this city, all of the life it has given back to me. And the imaginings of future nostalgia, too, as envision what it will feel like in the final few weeks, few days, before I leave Shanghai behind. Perhaps it will feel like betrayal, and I the betrayer, to so simply move on. To so simply accept another city into my life when this one has given me everything I’ve asked for (except, buttermilk biscuits and Dr. Pepper, of course).

But then, I realize, this is a city. A city is no more than the buildings that comprise it, the stone and mortar that comprise those buildings. People come and go and the city makes no protest, feels no sadness, makes no pleads for fidelity. Really, I am dependent on something that has no use for me, and this makes me even sadder than thinking I will, one day, betray it. And, here, I am stuck—feeling that this reticent city is both callous and compassionate. Both heartfelt and heartless.

And, here, I am stuck in the cold days of January, thinking too much about nothing at all. But to share it with you is my pleasure.