Of Yarn to Share

There were boxed salads, boxed burgers, boxed fries neatly stacked rows of non-alcoholic beverages.  This soda water and salad would have been fine.  It was fine.  So why did I head back to sample one of the barbecue burgers, as I believe they were called?   I would have fasted through lunch otherwise but with all the food laid out that way it was difficult to pass up and once I’d commenced consuming, I ate until I was quite full.  And then, the dreaded pull of sleep came upon me and pulled at me all afternoon.  I regretted that burger and bun then.  I should have stuck with the salad.

At five we wrap up the obligatory day and friends have talked me into a ride out to the Shanghai burbs.  I’m a resident of the Beijing burbs and I don’t know anything about this parallel universe other than that there are likely two of them, one to the east and one to the west.  We’ll be heading west and importantly, it will take about an hour to get there which is fine with me.  Within two minutes of buckling the seat belt and exchanging pleasantries with our DiDi driver, I’m fast asleep.

The awkward moment of entering a strangers’ house filled with strangers, walking about diminutively nodding one’s head and waving, passes quickly enough.  Someone recognizes me and calls to me as “professor.”  Soon I’ve reconnected with a remarkable student whom I worked with a few years back.  Her husband is someone I also know, from a more recent vintage at an event in Beijing.  There’s wine.  I have some.  There are beans and salsa which I scoop at with my chips.  And a plate of ribs is served and disappears before I can secure one.  But someone else shares one with me, which is kind.  It's now quite lovely to be here. 

I look up at their building and around at their compound and consider the suburban life not led, down here in Shanghai.  I don’t suppose it is dramatically different from the Beijing version.  The mix of people here is spirited, the host is smart and buoyant, the guests are all associated with early stage startups and everyone presents what they’re doing with great passion.  On the ride home a gentleman whom I hadn’t seen for a decade is in the back.  He is a musician and has a musician’s down-and-in ball of yarn to share about New York in the early seventies.  I can’t help but ask him about each of the times he saw Hendrix and his opinion of Steve Grossman and Bob Berg and I imagine his time there, amidst that imaginary scenery in my mind’s eye and I don’t need to sleep at all on this ride back into the city.

Saturday, 04/06/19