Prose: Nostalgia
This year's Double Ninth Festival has passed, and every time the Double Ninth Festival comes, I will think of the poem by the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei: "Remembering Shandong Brothers on September 9th" "Being alone in a foreign land as a stranger, thinking of relatives every festival." The remote knowledge brothers ascended to the heights, and there was one less person in the dogwood. "This popular poem is almost a household name, when I was a child, I didn't have any special feelings when I read this poem, I just felt that this poem was catchy, it was easy to remember, and I couldn't understand the content of the poem and the emotions expressed, until I had the experience of being in a foreign country, I had a deep experience.
One winter forty-four years ago, I had just turned sixteen when I put on my new uniform and left home. It was the first major choice I made in my life after graduating from high school and failing the college entrance examination, because it was this choice that determined the trajectory of my future life. It was from that time on, a feeling of homesickness that I had never felt before was unconsciously conceived in the depths of my heart.
The barracks of more than 40 years ago were not as good as they are today. Entering the barracks was like losing everything around me all at once, and all my relatives, friends, classmates, partners, etc., seemed to be away from me overnight. Coupled with the intense and arduous life of the army, the heavy burden weighed on my thin body, and I could barely breathe. The intense training during the day does not allow you to have so many thoughts, but every time in the dead of night, the feeling of missing your hometown and relatives will flood into your heart. Especially during the three months in the recruit company, the one that made me feel the most was the first Spring Festival in the company.
The troops usually have a three-day holiday for the Spring Festival. According to the tradition of the northern region, dumplings are also eaten on the first day of the Lunar New Year. I remember that at that time, the company's dumpling making was organized by squads, and the cooking squads only divided the flour and adjusted dumpling fillings into each class according to the head, and each squad organized itself. As for the quality of the bag, the cooked raw and cooked ones don't need to be managed by the cooking class. However, there is only one cauldron in the cafeteria, and whichever class is faster will occupy the "position" first. At that time, I was in the first squad of the recruit company, and most of the soldiers in the south of our squad were in the south, and some of them didn't know what it was like to make dumplings at all. It's troublesome now, and it's hard to get to the sky if you want to eat the first pot of dumplings. I had no choice but to make noodles again, roll the skin again, and free my hands to teach them to wrap, and I was very busy. Fortunately, the deputy squad leader of our class at that time, his hometown was from Ji County, and I was an authentic fellow, and the technique of making dumplings was also quite skillful, and the dumplings were beautiful and beautiful, but his main focus was on teaching the soldiers to make dumplings. Although our class did not eat the first pot of dumplings that time, we did not lag behind, which is inseparable from everyone's joint efforts. Looking at the steaming dumplings and tasting the delicious taste full of nostalgia, the nostalgia that lingered in my heart seemed to disappear with the laughter of the soldiers. However, such moments are temporary after all, just as I feel more sorrowful through alcohol, and at night, after the lights are out, I can't sleep for a long time. At this moment, the mountains of my hometown, the water of my hometown, the voices of my relatives, and my childhood friends, all the past events appeared in my mind like a movie. That night, I really got a taste of insomnia. Many years have passed, and that taste is firmly etched in my memory.
When I was a child, nostalgia was the small river at the head of the village, I accompanied her, and she accompanied me. When I grew up, homesickness was a window of hazy moonlight, I looked at her, and she shone on me. During the years in the barracks, nostalgia was the first letter sent to the family, the mooncake to nibble on during the Mid-Autumn Festival, the short reunion of comrades-in-arms with fellow villagers, and the silent waiting for the lights of thousands of homes again and again. And now nostalgia is a handful of loess at the foot of the mountain in my hometown, she shows me that no matter where I am, after all, I still want to return to my roots and my soul to belong...
