One
Six years ago, in the neighborhood where my son lived in Shenzhen, I picked up a few seeds. It was a stout old tree, shaded by the sun, and I didn't know its name. In the evening breeze, sitting under the tree, you can hear the sound of seeds crackling and falling. So I picked it up, wrapped it in paper, and brought it back to Jingzhou. That kind of tree is an authentic southern tree, and Hubei does not have it.
The seeds are dark and shiny, oval in shape, larger than lotus seeds, and slightly pointed at both ends. When you come back, put it in a jar-shaped flower bowl, sprinkle it with fine soil, and cover it with film. After about half a month, young shoots are born. Such joy is like a woman who made man. Didn't expect it to live. For six years, except for the occasional watering, it was not a big pipe. It grew slowly from a corn-like seedling and is now more than a meter tall. Although thin, the thought of being the seed of his son's community was extremely gratifying.
The day before yesterday, I found the soil in the basin and drummed up. Obviously, its growing body needed a more comfortable environment, so it decided to change to a large basin. When you start digging, half of the digging is gone, and underneath is a circle of spiral-shaped and very regular roots, like hemp rope, and like a bird's nest, which is seven or eight meters long. At that moment, I was a little shocked, too aggrieved by it, it was a product of nature, the root system was in all directions, and it was good to firmly penetrate into the soil. Unfortunately, in the curled up tank, a circle coiled up. The gentleman cut the roots and moved the new basin, but I thought, moving to a wider place in the suburbs, not to someone's balcony.
Two
When his son was three years old, he took him to the Jingzhou Museum and picked up a few seeds at the root of the wall full of climbing tigers. At that time, the family built a building and lived in the suburbs, and the husband stuffed the seeds he had picked up in the brick cracks in the back wall next to the water, and forgot about it. The following spring, soft vines protruded from the cracks in the bricks, spreading out like a tender baby. The vine secreted a vinyl liquid, dotted with stars, firmly grasping the cement wall, fanning out in all directions, and in the blink of an eye it was a large piece. At some point, the entire three-story rear wall was covered; at some point, it encroached on the neighbor's territory and surrounded several buildings. In summer, the green waves are like waves, and the glass window is covered with green vine leaves, or hanging windows, swaying with the wind. The light of the water passes through the gap, and a wall is flowing. It attracts snakes, more of a gecko. Sometimes it was too lush to be cut, and the rattan of Fangshan was already arm-thick.
Once, the sewer of the bathroom on the first floor was blocked and could not be opened, so I bought special tools and went inside to stir. Unexpectedly, all that came out was its roots. I had to pry the tile open and pull the roots out. The bowl is thick enough, two or three meters long, and occupies the position of the sewer. The sewer pipe was re-installed, the floor tiles were re-laid, and the outer wall was powdered with cement. The root is broken, and the surrounding leaves immediately die. I was afraid that the whole wall would be the same, but there was no, and the other roots were unusually lush.
The creeper is extremely vigorous, sometimes extending into the room along the window gap. Soft pink tentacles climbed over the wood-clad window frames, growing finger-cover-sized young leaves, and moving forward step by step. The back leaves continue to grow and age, and the color transitions from bright green to bright green, all the way to sad dark green.
The life of the plant is synchronized with the seasons, and in the autumn, it will be depressed, producing pepper-like black fruits. The bird chirps and pecks, with its stomach, and travels farther afield. Its children are not entrenched in their homes, and may not see their parents for life. Who knows, our family's creeper is a descendant of the museum creeper; and does it know where its mother is? It's also a mystery. If the wind and the birds have a spirit, they can convey this message. I believe that the secret language, perception, and wind way of thinking between animals and plants are not inferior to humans. In winter, the wall is desolate, leaving only a criss-crossing ochre brown strip, which adheres firmly to the wall like a pattern, hanging with dead leaves that have not fallen off. Even on a snowy day, you can hear the lonely sound of it drying up in the house.
The climbing tiger has lived year after year and has never broken the contract. When my son was in junior high school, every time he did his homework until late at night, the moon bent and hung like a silver hook on the cool sky outside the glass like water. The climbing tiger's vines swayed in front of the window, and he dozed off, packing up his stationery and going to sleep. The next day when I went to the school to open the stationery box, i actually jumped out of a turquoise gecko, which frightened the female table and jumped and screamed. Think about it, that time, flowing away. The old house was later rented to someone else and had a sign of decay. Things are not human, only the climbing tiger is still there, still coming every spring.
Many years later I understood that roots need to rest, in the fall and winter. All its worries, among the branches. Sending a child far away is still maintaining nourishment unless it dies on its own.
Three
In the first year of his son's junior high school, he studied the Olympic Mathematics in Shashi No. 3 Middle School in the summer, and his father picked him up and dropped him back and forth every day. The large flower pond at the entrance of the third middle school has planted several palm trees. This tree species is very common, perhaps because of the love for the seeds, still picked up some. I never knew what he picked up and did. Fifteen years later, my son had gone to work in the field, and only the two of us were left to guard the empty house.
He said, "I'll take you to see the trees I planted." "I put on my coat, gloves and scarf, and followed him to the countryside. It was a drizzly day, the tile-gray sky was cloudy, and at the end of an orchard there was a row of tall and dense palm trees. Five or six meters high, standing under the tree, you have to look up. I was extremely excited, from beginning to end, and my feet were full of muddy yellow and black mud. Counted, 81 trees. I laughed and said, why don't you give me a mountain! I have never owned so many trees, like rich men, and they are like the crown of the earth, turquoise and tall, and their branches stretched out; and they are like bands, waiting for my review.
In the orchard of his relatives, he planted seeds side by side, all of which survived. In the meantime, he also vaguely knew that he went to fertilize and prune every Sunday. Covered in knots from mosquito bites, he came back busy applying wind oil and washing in the bathroom. I thought it was fun, nothing more than a few unformed trees.
After that, the field was requisitioned and the trees were to be removed. Such trees, in addition to producing oxygen, have no practical use, unlike fruit trees that bear fruit and produce economic benefits. Despite not giving up, it was sold, very cheap, and I don't remember how much a tree cost. The road is not good, on the mound; the buyer has to hire someone to dig, tow it with a trailer, to transport it to an island, to cross the river, in short, it is good to sell it, otherwise it will be destroyed by the excavator.
Where are those trees now? I don't know, starting with a pea-sized seed, becoming a towering tree, and turning into a beautiful landscape through our hands. It is the blessing of the earth to be able to travel in this way, so love this magician-like land. She never priced seeds, and in her arms she was the mother, the womb.
And the power of the seed is so tenacious.
Whether it is the southern tree on the balcony, or the climbing tiger, or the 81 tall palm trees, we have benefited. Green, life, the passage of nature, but humans sometimes act as messengers for birds. And our children, often picked up seeds, do not know where to wander.
Love them, love them unparalleled.
Author: 菡萏
Editor: Wu Dongkun
Editor-in-Charge: Shu Ming
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.