My Jianghan Plain: Grandma laughs as usual

One early summer a few years ago, I went to the countryside to visit my grandmother.

Eighty-year-old grandmother, still insisting on growing vegetables in the field, raised a chicken and a duck, and ran through the fence to the pond, presumably with fresh insects or small snails on the other side of the pond.

The living conditions in the countryside are actually very bad, but when I was a child, I especially liked to go to my grandmother's house to play. Whenever it is summer vacation, it must be summer.

Now count the time, my childhood, my grandmother was probably in her fifties. There are many ponds in the village, and the pond behind the door of my grandmother's house is clear and clean, and the little fish swim around, and I crouch at the edge of the pool, fascinated by it. My grandmother taught me to sprinkle a little bit of broken rice into a basin, cover the basin with a cloth in half, and put the basin into the pool water very lightly with my hands and feet.

At dusk, I was overjoyed, as long as the movement was fast, I picked up the pot steadily, and without any effort, I harvested a lot of small fish and shrimp. When the cooking smoke of other people's houses rose, Grandma also began to cook dinner, she wrapped the small fish and shrimp in the sizing, mixed with a little salt and pepper, and carefully fried one by one, this bowl of fresh and fragrant dishes was specially used to entertain me. Coupled with the two freshly picked dishes stir-fried, the newly cooked rice is fragrant and sweet, and my chopsticks can't catch up with my mouth.

At that time, My grandmother watched me take a big bite, and she didn't eat it herself.

Sometimes she would make her own rice wine, stir the yeast and steamed glutinous rice evenly, cover it with a cloth, and wait for it to ferment naturally, spilling out the wine juice, sweet and sour with a little spicy. Take a few more sips, and my face will turn red, remembering the poem I recited, "Gongjun is drunk and taoran.". Grandma's surname is Tao, which is quite poetic.

Now that we are far apart, I visit them about once a year. Because of her birthday, it was also in the summer. This time when I saw my grandmother, she boiled more than a dozen eggs for me to eat. The eggs of the chickens on the ground, boiled and added some sugar, are actually particularly delicious. But I ate only one, and the others were pushed to my grandparents and advised them to eat more.

Today, I am even happier when I watch my grandparents eat. I also slowly realized that when I was young, my grandmother watched me eat happily and she was happy.

I bought a lot of food to bring to my grandmother, specifically picking out soft mung bean cakes, bread, juices, shortbreads, and soft and easy to chew brine chicken.

When I was a teenager, I was naïve and innocent, ignorant and fearless in my heart, easy to be happy, happy, and this kind of thing did not take much effort.

When I grew up, when I was groggy and working overtime in the office, when I was on duty alone in the dark night, when I was suffocating in a crowded bus, when my dreams were broken, when I cried in great pain, when I was tired and tired of work, I was grumpy and felt that life was too difficult. Suddenly, I remembered my eighty-year-old grandmother, and my memories came flooding in, and I felt stable in my heart.

In life, there are always some memories, and when you bear hardships, you will gradually feel at ease in retrospect. It is the first treasure of life, and it is not easy to use.

Whenever I fall into a dark moment, it doesn't take long for me to come out naturally, and I feel that I can always be healed by childhood. This is the luck that my grandmother gave me.

My grandmother, she is white-haired, working as usual, eating and sleeping as usual, wiping tears as usual, laughing as usual, walking has been shaky, vision is not good, although there is pain, it is not the same thing, talking about life and death, frankly. Her hands were stained with dirt in the field, but I felt that her heart was like glass, clean and clear.

I gradually understood the meaning of "there is an old family, such as a treasure". That is the support of the mind, just watching the old man not rush and not busy, seeing the world's time and experiencing the calmness of great joy and great sorrow, he will also calm down calmly.

The scope of her activities in her life has not exceeded a hundred kilometers, but she can calm and comfort me, who has traveled all over the country and spanned tens of millions of miles.

Series of essays

【Shen Jiake's works】