Puxi memories

In a taxi on Henan south road I feel it all coming back. People. Words. Places. I’m watching a woman slow pedal her yellow bike share bike across the intersection with Zhaojiabang Lu and think of all the times I crossed that stretch, on scooters gas and electric powered. On a BMX that was a present. On a yellow folding bike stolen months later somewhere just south. In taxis across three decades.

I think of peoples’ old houses and wonder where they live now, if they are alive. If they are divorced, or their children graduated college. Some I know well enough that the thought becomes action and I send a message to check in. Sometimes they answer back.

Many I don’t know, or can’t recall well enough to contact, and am left to speculate and appreciate. I think of the older couple that lived in a re-done lane house, creating a beautiful space with garden where they hosted game developers fresh from foreign lands. Their sanctuary became something special, and a window into the Shanghai of those years, where multinationals would move people to Shanghai to build new things. In my memory we were aware of how temporary it all was, and were happy because the Shanghai of 2006 was so clearly a special moment, something not to be missed. From twenty years on I can’t tell how true the awareness is, but I hope.

A few hours later I am wandering with an old friend around streets that I know, though almost every business is new to me, though half of the buildings themselves are new to me. It’s still hard for me to be lost in Shanghai. Later that evening I will guide us to a place I’ve never been without worry, the twenty minute walk across Nanjing Xi lu and north built on years of memories. When we find the destination and another old friend I’m glad, but not surprised.

On these long walks we talk about families and old friends. We talk about our dreams, or hopes. These topics are interspersed with the memories of what used to be, which drift past me as we enter new neighborhoods, as we pass hotels or shops I remember from other lifetimes. It’s a good 20 hours, well worth the flight to Shanghai. These moments are the time we have together, on one side of the Pacific or the other, and I am always glad.

The next day, my friend departed, I wander small alleys while on the phone. My eyes watching for cats as my mind works through life with the person best suited for it. I stretch on a hotel floor, looking down at the Huang Pu. I swim in the early morning, before coffee. And I taxi to the airport, driven by a man who is happy with my Mandarin. These are good moments, the gift of low employment and a family able to support the odd motions of our chosen life.