Some stories can be shared immediately, and some have to wait to be told. I will reserve my posts about the 2-month lockdown that Shanghai went through last April to June 2022 for obvious reasons. They’ll see the light of day once we are away from China for good. Know, though, that my heart goes out to everyone who suffered. Only we who were locked down, only we who lived through it, will know the depth of trauma of that shared experience. Our scars are psychological, mental, emotional. I don’t know anyone who wasn’t marked by it, one way or another.
When we’re back in the normal world, the story will rewrite itself to a less dramatic degree, downplayed to nothing more but a passing anecdote, glossed over quickly in conversation. Just as people who return from war — because it was a war of sorts, wasn’t it? — we will give the most perfunctory of summaries and then deftly veer the topic away from this still-open wound, this painful indignity. Only in the presence of fellow Shanghairens will the PTSD emerge. I hope, for all our sakes, we never have to go through anything like it again.
Currently listening to:
Horse Lords
Comradely Objects