The wind in Shanghai

I don't think I can ever fully articulate the kind of connection that I have with Shanghai. It is as if it made a slit in the skin between my ribs, slid in there, and is now living comfortably with the rest of my viscera. Once in a while, when it is afraid that I would forget its existence, it prods at my insides, jostling them, so as to stir up the old dust.

My memories of Shanghai have haunted me in so many different ways that I am starting to lose count. They have appeared in the form of my favorite streets, in a palpable tingle of the memory of a hug, in the image of someone's brown and orange gloves, in the glistening grains of fried rice nestled within a styrofoam box, and most recently, the chilly wind of the Shanghai night.

- I would be standing on the main passage in wanda facing guoding lu, flanked on one side by burger king and the other by that shop that sold the leather belts and shoes. Behind me, the glass protrusion that signaled an escalator down into the mall. Always, it is night and there is a chill. The tone of the night feels like autumn, but I'm sure it is spring. Sometimes I'm standing with G, and it is the night M texted me about getting into Med school. I remember that night, there was something heady in the air. Other times, I am just standing there alone, looking out into guoding lu. The wind, it always blows.