Figure: From the network
The place where the smoke rises is home. For everyone, home is always unavoidable.
The smoke in the morning is as thin as gauze and rises like a poem. With a little fog, it slowly stretches in the hazy sky, and the life and hope of a day begin here. At noon, the weather is fine, the smoke from the kitchen is thin and continuous, scattered on the ground, breathing the air with grass fragrance, making everyone feel warm and harmonious. At night, the smoke in the kitchen is everywhere, hovering in the mountain village, and people who have worked all day return to the place where the smoke rises in the kitchen. At sunset, across the fields, such as washed sunset glow and golden waves, the shepherd boy who came home late played the bamboo flute, and the air was filled with a strong local flavor. Everything with the footprints of a generation, weaving a beautiful rural life.
Kitchen smoke always sneaks into my heart like this. It is a symbol of home, a symbol of maternal love, a happy joy, and a quiet and satisfying life. Earlier, when I came back from a field or going out, I saw the smoke rising in the village, which prompted people to go home. At that time, many families in the village remained unchanged for decades, living in such a corner, without disputes or troubles, and the satisfaction with life would be written on everyone's face.
My childhood was simple and light, and I grew up in the warm arms of my mother. From the time I was sensible, I watched my mother eat three meals a day, lit cigarettes in the kitchen, cooked delicious meals and fed our stomachs every day. At that time, most of my family were not rich, and my mother and father worked on the production team to raise our five children. As long as I can remember, life at home has barely been maintained, but it has never made us hungry. In my mother's words, "three meals a day are always lit." There are seven mouths to eat, and only mom and dad work. My five children are growing up and can play and eat. Every time they go home, they feel at ease when they see their mother around the stove and lighting the smoke in the kitchen. Pushing open the door, we couldn't see our mother, so we all reached out to touch the stove, whether it was hot or cold. If the stove is very hot, your stomach will fall down. When the stove is cold, our hearts will be cold, thinking, "Why doesn't mom cook?" . At that time, I didn't know what my mother was doing or what she was thinking. I always feel that my mother is cooking for us.
The village hangs halfway up the mountain, and the school is behind it. When I was a child, I studied. In the last class, I couldn't help running to the school gate to see the cigarettes at home. Seeing the smoke rising from the roof, I seem to see my mother's busy figure and smell the steaming food. Where the smoke rises is home. Perhaps this is the waiting and care of all mothers in the world for their children. With my mother around, three meals a day, cooking cigarettes will always rise.
Young people leave home and stay away from their hometown. No matter the wonderful world outside or the delicacies outside, homesickness is always in their hearts. What they can't forget is the place where the smoke rises, because it is my home and there is my mother.
At the age of nineteen, I put on a green military uniform, left my mother, left my hometown and came to the beautiful Xizi Lake. In his later years, he ate the same pot of rice in the military camp and enjoyed the warmth of the military family. However, I can no longer see the kitchen smoke lit by my mother and eat the rice cooked by my mother. Every time I take up my rice bowl, I still think of the place where the kitchen smoke is lit and the meal cooked by my mother. Today, I clearly remember that my mother came to Hangzhou for the first time. I took my mother's hand and took a photo on the West Lake cruise ship. This is the only photo of our mother and son. I took my mother's arm and strolled by the West Lake. I said to my mother: The troops are well dressed and well eaten, but they are not as good as at home. Between words, my eyes are watery and I can't bear to be separated from the smoke-filled home.
I grew up, became an army cadre, had my own happy family, and lived a happy and stable life. Mother is old, too old to walk, too old to light cigarettes for three meals a day. I can only spend a few days with my mother every year, which is called "visiting relatives", just visiting relatives. In the later days, every time I went home, I went into the kitchen to light a cigarette, and my mother cooked on the kitchen stove. While cooking, the mother and son chatted about their family. This is the warmest and happiest time in my life. Perhaps, there will always be too many regrets and too many self-reproaches in life. Now that I think about it, there are too few days to spend with my mother.
Time is always inseparable from this stove and the rising smoke. At that time, cooking smoke became the sustenance of my son and the silk thread that touched the hearts of mother and son. The other end of the silk thread is always in the mother's hand. No matter how far I walk, I still think that as soon as I walk into that old house, my mother will light firewood and raise smoke.
Over the years, everything seems to be changing. The outside world is always so wonderful, people's hearts become lively, and young people in the village are always eager to go out. There are no people left in the village now. Great changes have taken place in the original appearance of this village. The once neat farmhouse no longer exists, and the old uninhabited houses have been in disrepair for a long time, and some have collapsed, giving people a sense of decline. Fortunately, in the construction of new countryside, the village is clean and tidy, with several tall buildings and some wall paintings, which make people feel some modern atmosphere and see some vitality and hope.
The change of the world, through the sunshine between cracks, through the time and space in the fog, through those broken walls and mottled old houses, is full of emotion. The ancestors explained the end of time with their lives, wrote down the years on that land, and continued to write their hard past, which future generations can never erase. A few years later, it is also difficult to see the scene of the smoke rising in the village. There are not many firewood stoves in the farmhouse, and every family has a liquefied gas stove. Perhaps, the old will always be replaced by the new, no matter how reluctant we are, everything is so helpless.
Where the smoke rises is home. When I was a child, I often waited for the smoke from the kitchen and imagined the person who sat in front of the stove and raised fireworks every day, because with such a person, it was a perfect and happy home. The smoke that once hovered on the kitchen roof, the delicious food, the chopsticks placed on the table, a firewood, a scene, a shadow, all the bits and pieces, no matter how many years have passed, years can't erase these.
Time passes quietly, and the years slip gently from the fingertips. Some things will eventually become endless memories, memories of that earthen stove and attachment to that old house will eventually become important memories in life. A few years ago, my parents died one after another, and the smoke in the old house never rose again. The firewood stove is gray and cold, which makes people sad. Over time, there are always some things that some people will never forget. Scenes appeared in my mind. Those once cooking smoke, like the strong smell of fireworks, bear the love of my mother, the taste of home and the eternal affection, which will accompany me forever.
Mom left, and the old stove quietly waited for the old house. No smoke, no temperature, leaving me endless homesickness. Go back to the warm home and push open the creaking wooden door. There is no smoke on the stove and no food on the table. What I smell is the damp and moldy smell of the old house. At this time, my eyes were blurred and I didn't even dare to step into the house. Walking into such a home without cooking smoke, such sadness and desolation will make everyone choke. All I can do is stand in the same place, miss my mother who once sat in front of the stove and lit the kitchen smoke, and count the rise of the kitchen smoke. There is a lot of helplessness in life, the castle peak remains the same, the smoke clears, leaving only endless acacia.
Time flies, so fast that people can't touch spring and summer, and autumn and winter have arrived, leaving only memories. Mother's life's efforts, we have no time to repay, people have gone, leaving only regret. After leaving my hometown for decades, everything is changing. What remains the same is the homesickness that I can't give up. Wandering home is always concerned. For many years, as soon as I walked into a familiar old house, I called my mother. It is full of the feeling of home, mother's love and a kind of affection.
"Where is the remote night person, the travel notes of Chengtan in the middle of the month; The sky is vast and I am eager for my hometown. " China people's thought of seeking roots has remained unchanged for thousands of years, and their strong feelings of returning home cannot be written in words. In the depths of time, we are always pursuing, pursuing distant memories, pursuing distant shadows, and pursuing lost relatives. In the cycle of flowers blooming and falling, in the round trip of spring, summer, autumn and winter, how many past events have been sealed and how many stories have been read, a friendship is beautiful, a calligraphy has written down the Spring and Autumn Period, time has passed, years have flown, and attachment to the distant smoke at the beginning is always a deep sigh. It's good to have a mother.
Author's resume: Li Jinsong, pen name Bing Lian Jinsong, born in Shengzhou, Zhejiang Province, member of China Prose Writers Association and Ningbo Writers Association. He worked in the Armed Police Force for many years, then worked in the local government, loved literature and published more than a thousand articles. Now he is a contracted author of several websites, and his articles are scattered in major domestic newspapers and magazines and various literary websites.