I was born in a remote and ordinary village in the north. At that time, medical conditions were underdeveloped, and I was born in a blue brick bungalow in the village. I was brought into this world by my parents at the risk of violating the "family planning" policy. Therefore, for an ordinary farming family in the 1980s, my birth brought not only temporary joy, but also a heavy family burden.
The yard where I was born should be some years old. I don't know how many years. My grandparents should have built it. To me, he is also like an old man. He didn't leave too many marks on my memory. I was very young, about one or two years old. In my impression, my mother was busy cooking by the fire; While my father fiddled with some tools in the yard, making fire hydrants or other daily appliances; Occasionally, some shadows walk through the corridor facing north. These images are so blurred that I can't tell which ones are real memories and which ones are virtual imagination. Because, soon, we moved to a new place.
But the jujube trees in the yard gave me a clear impression. In the years after I grew up, I would come back to the tree to pick dates every year. In autumn, the leaves on the jujube tree are still oily green, and there is no shadow of fallen leaves, but the branches of the jujube tree are covered with heavy fruits, red, green, big and small, in clusters. Jujube, slightly smaller than an egg, tastes crisp and fragrant. The red one is sweet and the green one is light. Now it makes my mouth water. I still vaguely remember the shadow of my mother, sister and I picking dates on the roof. There is a acacia tree in the yard. In autumn, the Gleditsia sinensis tree is covered with black half-foot long Gleditsia sinensis, which looks like beans. When picking honey locust, my mother also mentioned the taboo that old people can't hit with a pole-because there are immortals living in the old honey locust tree, and hitting honey locust with a pole is afraid of hitting the immortals by mistake. When the honey locust is picked, mother will dry it and use it to boil water and wash her hair in winter. Mom said that the hair washed with honey locust is smooth and oily, which is much better than shampoo. We have seldom come to this yard since we moved out. Jujube and Gleditsia sinensis have never been cared for, but they can always pick baskets of fruits from the trees. Even after years away, they often enjoy their nourishment.
Father and mother bought land in the north of the village and built a new house and yard. When I built my new house, I was still young, probably just over one year old and two years old, but one thing impressed me deeply. Dad, mom and our folks are busy moving bricks, carrying mud and building new houses. My second sister watched me sit on a stone and play. Second sister is teasing me with a corncob (corn cob with seeds peeled) in her hand. I also saw two corn cobs on the grass in the distance. I was curious and ran to get them back. But then I suddenly lost my memory. What happened later was what my mother said. When I walked to Yayoi Kusama, my mother shouted anxiously, but I was too absorbed to hear. Because there is a new toilet under the straw cover, which is more than two meters deep and has shallow water inside. I walked over and as soon as the grass fell, an uncle of our family immediately jumped down and picked me up. I only vaguely remember that I was carried back to my hometown and put on my hometown table, and my clothes were soaked. These memories are too vague, which is the earliest impression of the new home.
The newly built house has no courtyard wall, and the yard is surrounded by wild jujube trees. In spring, the seeds of morning glory are scattered under the hedge of jujube trees. In summer, morning glory vines are covered with withered and black branches of jujube trees, and purple and blue morning glory adorns the thriving courtyard-this is our new home.
I still remember my mother hanging the cooked lentil horn on the ground, drying it and storing it, so that it can be eaten as a dish in winter. Mother took one and chewed it in her mouth. I picked one up and chewed it in my mouth like her. In the yard after the rain, there will be white mushrooms coming out of the ground and my mother will keep them. When she grows up, she will pick them and fry them in oil for me to eat, which is more fragrant than meat. I have never eaten such fragrant fried mushrooms in my later life. A pile of elm trunks was piled up in the southeast of the yard. Also after the rain, the wet elm trees will give birth to a kind of black fungus, black and black. Mother picked a flower and gave it to me directly. A faint fragrance, it tastes thick and smooth, as if it still smells of elm. It was amazing.
Nothing impressed me more than the paulownia trees in the yard. After the house was built, my parents planted more than a dozen paulownia trees in suitable locations inside and outside the yard. I don't seem to remember my parents when I was a child, nor do I remember the paulownia tree when I was a child. When they took root in my memory, they were more than ten meters high and twenty or thirty centimeters thick. In early spring, all the paulownia trees in the yard grow flowers and bones. The flower bones are gradually blooming with lavender flowers, clusters, branches of paulownia trees are covered with you and me, and the yard is filled with the fragrance of paulownia nectar. They are all in high spirits, broadcasting the breath of spring to the whole world like small speakers. I picked up the occasionally fallen paulownia flowers from the ground, took off the pedicels and put them around my neck, like necklaces or beads. Put the petal horn in your mouth, and a sweet fragrance overflows your lips. When you blow, the petals vibrate and beep, and it really becomes a trumpet. At that time, it was probably the happiest time when I was a child.
In summer, paulownia trees grow wide leaves, a dark green tree is overwhelming, and the whole yard seems to be covered. In hot summer, paulownia tree is our best sunshade. There is a cool breeze under the tree, and I often walk barefoot on the ground. Cicada greedily sucks its own juice in the tree, and keeps screaming "knowledge-",which is very noisy. At that time, I hated cicadas very much. I thought they were pests and it was unfair to them to eat the nutrition of paulownia trees. But there is no good way except to catch a few occasionally for fun.
What I remember most is that it is autumn. Leaves fall one by one without feeling. However, the wind blew suddenly all night, and when I woke up in the morning, there were not many leaves on the tree. The sky suddenly lit up, and my vision widened a lot, and I felt that the whole world was refreshing. The yard is covered with yellow-green leaves, a thick layer, like several layers of flannel. It is soft to step on, and there is no sound. At this time, my mother always cleans up the paulownia leaves in the yard, and cleans them in piles. Mom likes flowers. In autumn, there are all kinds of chrysanthemums in the yard, including white Bai Mudan, golden swan dance, pink water lotus, yellow hemisphere, and slender chrysanthemums with filiform petals ... It's really colorful. It was cold in autumn, and they were unbeaten in first frost. My mother always moved them into the house with pity, and the plants planted on the ground were covered with plastic bags, always afraid that they would be damaged by wind and frost. There are other flowers in the yard, such as Chinese rose or cactus, but they are not as bright and unscrupulous as those chrysanthemums.
In winter, the paulownia trees are bare, and the trunks and branches extend straight into the gloomy sky. Sometimes the sun is lazy, and the scene of "old trees wither and vines fall to the west" reveals a sad artistic atmosphere.
When I was a child, I especially liked painting. I tried to draw the appearance of paulownia trees several times, but unfortunately my watercolor pen didn't have their colors.
My grandfather died before I was born, so I don't know what he looks like. At that time, my grandmother lived in my uncle's yard, which was not far from my home. Therefore, my grandmother brought me and my cousin to grow up together. Grandma often takes my cousin and me to live with several aunts and go to her market. She watched me play with my cousin, and so on. Grandma always gives me an extra twist for my cousin and me. I always thought grandma was very kind to me. I proudly told my aunt, and I made her complain about her grandmother. I remember coming home from school once, and when I was hungry, I ran home to find food. Grandma shouted at the back, "two eggs-two eggs-". I don't know what happened. I'm very nervous. When she arrived, she said that she was afraid that I would go home to keep warm and burn my shoes, and kept telling me not to keep warm. When I was a child, I didn't understand her intentions. Now that I think about it, my grandparents' concerns about grandchildren may be so exaggerated.
But in my impression, grandma always looks sad and sad, and seems to have never seen her smile. At that time, she was only in her sixties, approaching seventy, but she didn't seem to be afraid of death. During the Chinese New Year, I went to kowtow to my grandmother. When I got to her house, I knocked on the ground. She would say, "Knock on God and knock on me when I'm dead." My sister and I are with my grandmother, and she will teach us some jingle sentences: "The crutch is here, the crutch is always there, the crutch is here, both crutches are here, crutches are better than children, …" What else? In one breath, no one asked a word before going to bed. At that time, I was young and didn't know the meaning of these sentences. I have always felt inferior. I feel older than my sister, and I remember better than my sister. I still remember, on the night of the full moon, with my grandma and my sister, grandma also said, how many moons did you see? My sister and I both said it was one, and grandma said she saw two. I wondered at that time how I could see two moons. Now that I think about it, grandma was presbyopia at that time. I think her eyes are not working. Grandma always says, "I'm in business, I'm in business." At that time, I didn't know what it meant, except that my grandmother was very sad, but I didn't know what she was worried about. Then one afternoon, the family said that grandma was ill and was burned by the fire near the kang in the house, and she was unconscious. Many people came to my uncle's house, and so did my aunts. A few days later, grandma passed away. I still remember my father wearing a filial piety cloth on his head, arguing with others and insisting on bringing grandma to our house to stop the funeral. A painter drew some pictures on grandma's coffin. Remember to draw "Twenty-four Filial Pieties".
When I was a child, I had a dream that I was at the bottom of a well behind my yard and suddenly flew out of the well into the yard and saw the red courtyard wall. After waking up, I told my mother excitedly. My mother also jokingly said to me, "You belong to the dragon, you can fly, and you flew up from the bottom of the well." I always thought it was a good dream, but it was this dream that might indicate that I started my life at the bottom of the well.
In the later days, my father was often ill, and the whole family was not only poor, but also afraid. At the age of twelve, one spring, my father finally left us under the weight of life. When he left, he left me no last words. He just said to his mother, "This family depends on you and XX (my brother's name)." Then he closed his eyes. Father left and the family collapsed for a long time. My brother was not married at that time and had no formal job. When my mother died, she resisted the burden of the whole family.
The year after my father left, I graduated from primary school and went to junior high school. I don't know why. My mother said to me, "Don't go to No.4 Middle School. Go to No.1 Middle School. Your cousin teaches in that school and your uncle knows the principal of that school. It will be better. " No.4 Middle School is close to home, so you can go home every day. No.1 Middle School is far from home, that is, you live in school. I have never left home, and I don't know what it's like to leave home, so I readily agree. I imagine myself living independently outside. In this way, I began to live far away from my hometown.
After being sent to the school of No.1 Middle School by my brother, my cousin and my wife received me. Have classes in the classroom during the day and live in the temporary residence of the school at night. When the night came, I knew the loneliness and loneliness of leaving home. The other students are close to home and have all gone home. I don't know my wife and cousin very well, and I didn't stay with them after dinner. Other teachers in the school get together, eat, chat and play cards. Their children are playing happily. I sometimes go to the window next to the stairs of the teaching building and count the stars every day, quietly feeling lonely and lonely. Later, my cousin negotiated with my mother, menstruation, and sent me to live in menstruation's house near the school. I remember it was already autumn. One rainy afternoon, the autumn wind was rustling. My cousin took me to my aunt's house. My aunt and uncle warmly accepted me. Seeing that I was dressed so thinly, my aunt quickly found me a shirt of her grandson to put on and said, "It's so cold, you'd better wear a little."
In this way, I settled down in my aunt's house. I go to school during the day, go back to menstruation's home at night, watch TV or do my homework at night. The schoolwork in junior high school is not too heavy, and the days are getting worse every day. But I always miss home. My aunt and uncle are both over 60 years old. I am timid by nature and won't say anything in my heart. My aunt's grandson comes back to play occasionally, and I chat with them. My aunt's daughters will come to see the two old people after the holidays, with their daughters or sons, and make a lot of noise. Their little daughter is doing business in other places, and it is very filial to come back to see them. She always takes a lot of good things and leads her daughter back to see them with joy. Although I am at my aunt's house, I am still a relative, and the sense of alienation is always difficult to eliminate. Therefore, I will always be homesick. I never told my mother that I wanted to go back to No.4 Middle School. I feel that people who promise to go to No.1 Middle School can't go back on their word. But every day I fantasize that one day, suddenly a bomb blew up the school and the teaching building collapsed, so that I can go back to No.4 Middle School near my home. But that day has never come, and I still live in my homesickness day after day. Therefore, sometimes it is more diligent to go home, and even for a while, I go home every day. To go home, you need to ride a bike, walk more than 30 miles, cross a ridge hundreds of meters high and cross several villages. Some roads are bumpy parking oil roads, and some are remote and bumpy country roads, which are muddy and difficult to walk in rainy days. At that time, I really hoped that my road ahead would be smooth sailing! Riding a bike in winter, when going down a big slope, the wind blows to the gloved hand, which hurts like a needle. When I got to school, my hair was covered with frost. Even so, I am homesick and want to go home every day.
Sister-in-law once said to me, "Like your brother, you are homesick and have no great promise." I have no objection to what she said. We are really homesick and always reluctant to leave home. After graduating from technical secondary school, my brother went back to his hometown and began to prepare. He never wanted to go out and explore the new world. He went to Beijing several times to find a job to make a living, but he finally came back. His classmates invited him to work in Shanghai, but he didn't go after all, and later became a civil servant in a local government not far from home. He has a place to live there, but he still rides his bike home for dozens of miles every day. So he must be homesick. When I was in the third grade, my mother and my aunt took care of them in Beijing at the invitation of my cousin. I walked for about three months. She is homesick, too. She said that once, when she saw a cup that looked like her brother's drinking cup, she choked up immediately. A few months later, she came back and said she would never go again. It can be seen that she is also homesick. On my sister's wedding day, after the wedding, my sister took my hand and sent us out. She walked dozens of meters, but she didn't go. I pulled her and asked innocently, "Won't Sister come back with us?" Tears in elder sister's eyes immediately came out. It can be seen that my sister is also homesick. Yes, we all miss home. I think it's how hard-hearted people don't love home. Maybe second sister doesn't want to go home. ...
My aunt's house is also a rural compound, an old house with a history of hundreds of years, with blue bricks and tiles, high walls and thick walls, and antique. There is also a jujube tree older and bigger than my hometown in the yard, as well as peach trees and apple trees. My uncle is a country doctor. When they get old, they no longer plant large areas of land. Therefore, they have a lot of leisure time. There are many flowers and plants in the yard, including succulents, peach blossoms, coral bean, pomegranates and so on. Spring has come, the peach trees in the yard are in bloom, and swallows are flying around among the trees, twittering. My uncle likes calligraphy and painting. In the room, there is a nave with "Inscription of Zhuozheng Office", and there are various Chinese painting calendars on the wall. This yard is as quiet and peaceful as its owner. But there are still some discordant places. They have a son, who is my cousin. Cousins and cousins don't come often. Once I came over, I don't know why, and I called my second uncle to tell them something. My uncle excitedly said something like "I face the loess, my back is facing the sky" and "I feel my conscience", but my aunt was also unhappy and helpless. I'm not sure what it is, but I know it's probably because I have a contradiction or dispute with my cousin. I heard from my mother that there were many disputes between them and their sons and daughters-in-law.
Life in junior high school seemed quite long at that time, but now it seems as if it just passed in a flash. Then I went to high school and college. When I was about to graduate from college, by chance, I found a Shanghai unit willing to provide me with internship opportunities at the school job fair. I called my mother and said, "I can't find a suitable job in Zhengzhou. I'm going to practice in that company in Shanghai. If it goes well, I will stay in Shanghai. " Mother agreed without hesitation. Going home from school, a few days later, I took my handbag and embarked on a train to Shanghai. After arriving in Shanghai, I was a stranger and experienced many hardships. But after a short period of adaptation, I finally got familiar with the pace of work, study and life in metropolis. In Shanghai, I learned to find a job by myself, deal with my colleagues, cook and eat by myself, and entertain myself. I go home once or twice a year after a long vacation, and the rest of the time is spent in busy work, but I don't want to go home anymore. Although it is still "no future" as my sister-in-law said, I finally don't want to go home.
Later, it is to fall in love and get married. Shortly after marriage, his wife became pregnant. After pregnancy, my wife and I strengthened our belief in buying a house in Shanghai. We always feel that renting a house outside is still wandering and there is no home. When I proposed to buy a house in Shanghai, my mother was not as honest as when I came to Shanghai. She didn't agree. On the one hand, I am worried about the pressure of repayment. More importantly, buying a house in Shanghai means that I am more completely away from my hometown. But I think it's like when she and her father left their hometown where jujube trees were planted and built a new home full of paulownia trees. After all, I want to leave my hometown full of paulownia trees and build a new home in a new place. It's just that my new home is much farther than theirs. My mother was relieved after that. Anyway, I finally have a home of my own outside.
The mother is naturally very happy about the birth of her son. Although she couldn't accompany us, she stayed up all night in her hometown thousands of miles away, waiting for her son to be born and burning incense. When my son was four or five months old, my mother came to Shanghai to help us take care of the children. But problems soon appeared. On the one hand, she is not used to life; on the other hand, she is not feeling well. More importantly, she is homesick again. She is still not used to life in a big city. She always thinks that the yard at home is deserted, the fields are uninhabited, and the people in the brigade come to see her again. She has always said that this is not her home, and she is still used to staying at her home. It is useless for my wife and I to persuade her. In desperation, I can only send her back to her hometown. She can only sigh that this is a good place with plenty of rain, lush vegetation and good air, but she is not blessed and can't enjoy this good place.
Every time I go back to my hometown, my mother and I will arrange time to visit my aunt and uncle. They are old and inflexible, but they are in good spirits, always smiling and always bringing food and drink to my mother and me-in their impression, we are always more difficult to get along with than them. Soon after, my uncle was diagnosed with advanced gastric cancer, and I was afraid to tell my aunt because everyone was still hiding it from the two old people. I spoke to their little daughter on the phone. They plan conservative treatment, not major surgery. After all, people in their eighties have suffered a lot from surgery and may not be able to recover. Soon after, my uncle passed away. I just talked to my aunt, but she seemed very calm. She also comforted me and said, "There is nothing I can do. People are old and sick, who can forgive? " My mother and I will also arrange time to visit my aunt. My aunt also mentioned that when my uncle was alive, they also went to live with his son. My uncle said angrily, "I won't come out in my own house even if I die." With tears in her eyes, she said, "Now I am in a hurry and died at home." Now there is only one sister left, and she can't take care of herself. She can only take turns to take care of several children, and she is also very depressed. Several children except the youngest daughter are exceptionally filial, and others can only be considered as acting. A year later, in winter, my aunt died, too. Aunt is a brain congestion. Her son handled her illness, hospitalization, craniotomy and death. My mother and several uncles were kept in the dark until the doctor announced that "we can go home without further treatment". Her son called her and said, "My mother is dying, and we have already gone home from the hospital." Several uncles, mothers and aunts were sad and angry. Angry that her son didn't say it when his aunt was in hospital, but now he is dying; Angry at why they didn't treat conservatively, but risked doing such a big operation. When they saw their sister's body destroyed by the operation and died in a coma after the operation, they were more sad and angry. But it's no use crying over spilled milk. What can we do? If we pursue it, it will only add to our troubles. To outsiders, what their children did was not wrong. They took their aunt home, they went to the hospital for surgery, and they held a grand funeral ... so the two old people went through their lives. I often think of him and his two old people, and the yard where they live together. The flowers, peaches, jujube trees and apple trees in that yard ... they are just like the people in that quiet and peaceful old yard, and they are just as barren in the end.
Working in Shanghai all the year round, I can't go home several times a year. As early as several years ago, my brother bought his own house in the city and moved in. And only my mother still stubbornly lives in her yard. The older she gets, the less she wants to go anywhere else. She just feels more comfortable living in her own yard. She also often chats with several elderly people of similar age. But when I called my mother recently, she always lamented that an aunt nearby went to work in the city to earn money and an aunt went to take care of her son. There are fewer and fewer old people at home ... I often worry that fewer and fewer people can talk to her. I think with the advancement of urbanization, people will move into cities and towns one after another, and the villages, villages and courtyards on which their fathers lived will eventually become increasingly depressed with the removal and death of that generation or generations. This trend is with the development of economy, and no one can change it. I just hope that when we leave them, or when they leave us, we can be kind to them. That's where I was born and raised, and there are people who were born and raised. ...
In a few days, it will be Tomb-Sweeping Day again, remembering Wang Wei's poem, "People are in a foreign land, and they miss their relatives every festive season." I know from a distance where my brother climbed the mountain, and there is one person missing from the dogwood. As in previous years, this is another vagrant festival I spent. I think I am destined to get farther and farther away from that hometown and home, but I think my heart has never left, because there are jujube trees that nourish me, paulownia trees planted by my father, chrysanthemums planted by my mother, and a homesick mother. And, of course, father.