TToT #6: Shanghai Solitude...

Hotel Alone 

All new things happen when you least expect it. 

Here I am in Shanghai. 

I don’t have a bucket list. Perhaps I should. I have not frequented many hotels. Perhaps I should.

I don’t sit and spend time alone. Perhaps I could.

What’s a Girl To Do?

So. I have ideas and whims and things to consider. I have googled and listed places to see. Slight snag. No, I can cope with a planned day -honestly! It is raining the cats and dogs that are left over from last night’s meal…

RAIN - 

I have always loved rain. It is something that I can recall from an early age. Watching the silent softness streaming down windows. Long car journeys brought lots of raindrop racing; each droplet looking to follow a predictable path but then an often unforeseen and exciting deviation. It is a game that I played by myself in the back of cars. I can still remember the coldness of the glass under my pudgy fingers. 

Then there is the smell of the world after a good downpour. Freshness. Fragrant. Occasional fragility.

Warm rain, loud rain, wet rain, damp rain, icy cold rain and then there is something more than rain. A DELUGE. A real dampener on a day. 

And with deluge comes dilemma. Sit tight for a while and live the Shanghai experience from within the four walls of the hotel? No choice.

Interesting. Cannot remember the last time that I was left with little choice but to sit with my own company. Indulgent. Time capturing and a little tiny bit scary. Who would want to be alone with my thoughts? Not I. For a start, I can never keep up!

Finding my inner…

And letting some of it outer…

Not sure how many of you will really get where this blog entry comes from. But, hey, I am okay with that. 

The Art of Arts…

Photography. Writing. Thinking. Feeling. Reflecting. Editing. Considering. Wondering. Writing. 

All for the Art of Arts.

And this is what I did for almost  5 hours.

Who would have thought it?

Playing creator for the day:

•    Endless stream of senseless selfies
•    Endless stream of subconsciousness - Virginia Woolfe style
•    Lost in thought, translation and pensive pre-occupation 
•    Indulgent id
•    Endless stream of water pouring from the smog smothering Shanghai sky

And so to the streets I step… 

With a day’s experience under my belt, I know how best to deal with these Shanghai streets.  But I was not expecting so much attention. Do I really look like Beyonce? Umbrella-ella-ella - was directed to me at least 50 times by the street vendors.

Then catch up with K. She had dumplings for lunch. I had a bucket filled with solitude and self reflection. Someone once said that “Holidays are often about recharging batteries and coming back with a nice clean bucket into which you can direct the steady torrent of dunderheadery from the chittering masses that surround you.” I wonder if I have taken a step in the right direction or just been dumped on…But a bucket indeed.

Taking a good look at me and my place in this world

HOTEL HOSTAGE 

A little light relief comes in the form of some forced public interaction. Nothing quite like a quick rough-up amongst the Shanghai masses. 

Seem to have made so many connections with the finer threads of thoughts today that I don't even notice when no-one notices me…

Shanghai - a place to be a nobody. Not even a presence.

Each for your own. Personal space = nil. Personal thought = negligible. Personal anything = too hard to say…

BUT Shanghai does mean high above the water - so maybe it is just too hard to reach… Certainly within two days… 

For the first time in decades, I have found myself alone; 

just me and my mind. 

My memories and my mastermind of thought. 

It has been quite the experience. 

Playing Writer - Just for a day …