Text: Gao Chengyu
Figure: From the network
When people reach middle age, they like nostalgia. When I left my hometown, in the rush and busy, more than twenty years have passed unconsciously, and now, although I have settled in the city, I always feel that I am a "guest brigade" here, and it seems that only when I think of the countryside of my hometown, the sense of refuge in my heart will be provoked in an instant.
I know that I am just a kite, no matter where I go and how far I go, hometown, is the long lead that has always tied my homesick mood.
Where I work, more than 700 kilometers from home, it takes nine hours by car, but on the third of this month, my idea of returning to my hometown finally came true again.
After all the rush, finally set foot on the land of my hometown, the former asphalt road, has become a two-way six-lane, the roadside is an endless wheat field, the air is overflowing with the fragrance of dirt, rows of neat new rural buildings, beautiful atmosphere, towering on both sides of the highway, ah! Is this still the hometown I remember?
The car drove to my old town, where everything has been strange Enough to make me dare not recognize, higher and higher buildings, more and more luxurious hotels, more and more high-grade supermarkets, has been and my hometown, more and more distant.
At that time, there were very few people rushing to the market on the street, and only around the Spring Festival would it be lively. The villagers, who have been busy for a year, rush to the market, use the money from the sale of eggs, go to the store to buy some fabrics, and make new cotton clothes or new cotton shoes for the children. At that time, the village was mostly brick and tile houses, and there was the sound of chickens and dogs barking everywhere, and when it was time to cook, the cooking smoke was thick.
At this moment, I came to the village where I was born and raised, the dirt road of the past has disappeared, replaced by a cement road leading to the door of the house, the houses in the village, almost all of them have become two-story buildings, and some people's doorways are mostly cars parked.
I walked into my old house and stared quietly, which left the imprints of my childhood and youth, and my family's hall house had become mottled, like a dying old man, in a spacious building room of the neighbor' right and left, shrunken figure, like an old mother with silver hair, waiting for me to go home at the entrance of the village, looking alone.
At that time, these old houses in the family were the crystallization of their parents' lifelong efforts, and also recorded the bittersweet and bittersweet of their lives. The corners and corners of the old house also recorded the bits and pieces of my growth process, strung together into the pearls of the years, so that I slowly tasted the past life with tears in the eyes of the old house.
This time when I came home, I saw those elderly grandfathers and grandmothers, they were all people who watched me grow up, after many years, their once young faces were now like the ravines crisscrossing the fields, but their lives were still alive and powerful, taking care of household chores, working in the fields, and living a simple and fulfilling life in the countryside.
Every time I return to my hometown, everything feels so simple, so familiar, so deep. Although my hometown has changed its old appearance, I can still faintly find the traces and shadows of that year.
At that time, the primary school I studied in was still there, the path I went to school was still there, some of the teachers who taught me were still there; the drainage and irrigation station where I and my friends used to play was still there, the stone where we swam and washed our feet was still there, and even the name we carved on a big locust tree was still there...
I searched mercilessly, unwilling to move my steps for a long time, let the wind of my hometown blow my hair, and let my thoughts fly on the endless fields.
I stood on the river embankment and looked around, the village in front of me, still so let me linger, she has experienced countless vicissitudes in the world, still simple and unpretentious, always in the most silent and calm way, welcome my return, with her unique rustic quality, touching the softest place in my heart.
At the time of parting, I looked through the car window, and I still saw my mother and uncle standing at the entrance of the village waving in my direction, looking at the village that was gradually moving away, I couldn't help but pick up the camera in my hand and press the shutter again and again.
I know that what remains in the camera is no longer just the village and the old house, but also the nostalgia of the villagers who are still messy.
The village of my hometown, in my eyes, she is a pair of calloused, rough but warm hands, when I am physically and mentally exhausted, let my soul be soothed, in the impetuous, anxious, depressed, fast-paced city, can return to the embrace of my hometown, so that I can find my original heart, but also find the original lost.