Shenzhen Business Daily Reading Client "Reading and Reading"
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Recitation: Zhao Yu (Shenzhen Business Daily, Reader Client Anchor)
https://image.netwin.cn/cms/2024/05/11-23-36-389002.mp3
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The years that my mother caressed with both hands
Author: The third brother of the farmer
In the past two days, the installation of natural gas pipelines has begun in remote rural hometowns in Henan. Suddenly I thought that the "pop and pop" wind box next to the wood stove has long been gone, and the coal stove that was quite luxurious a few years ago now has nowhere to buy coal, what about the "flower beat" that uses sorghum to string the distilled buns, the pot lid that is tied with wheat straw, the pot brush that is tied with threshed peach ears, and the crickets that are scurrying around on and under the stove?
The imprint of the hometown is indifferent. I dreamed many times that I returned to my hometown, but I couldn't find my mother, and I was anxious to cry. Those old things that make people look at things and think about things are gradually dying out, will the longing for my mother also be erased from memory? I searched for the shadow of my mother's work in a sad and panic, and I found a rare one.
When I was a child, most of the quilts and clothes at home were cotton, which my mother exchanged for spun threads. When the farm is slack, the cotton that has been deseeded is first kneaded into a twist more than a foot long with a stick. Whenever the night is quiet, the mother's spinning wheel hums, and with one hand shakes the spinning wheel, and with the other hand pulls the twist out of the cotton thread, and wraps it around the spindle of the spinning wheel until it forms a spindle larger than a grain cob. I watched as the twist spat out of her hollow mouth, shortening between my mother's left thumb and forefinger, spinning one and then another. Occasionally, when I see the lights dimming, I use the tip of a needle to pick out the dark red lights. Children can't stay up and go to sleep first, and often wake up, in the dim yellow light, the spinning wheel is still boring. The winter night is cold, my mother's feet are numb, and she spins while napping, which has been soaked until the early days of the popularity of chemical fiber fabrics. When she saw the spinning wheel abandoned in the corner of the wall and endured the wind and rain, my mother must have asked herself more than once, is this spinning wheel really useless? Until a few of the plates of the spinning wheel were fed into the hearth, there was no trace left.
The old family "likes" to eat sesame leaves, and my mother is no exception. In order not to affect the yield of sesame seeds, the leaves are always picked when the sesame seeds are about to ripen. Mom had a towel on her head, braving the scorching sun and the high temperature, picking baskets and baskets. When I get home, I steam it in a firewood hot pot, spread it out and dry it on a flat dirt road, and knead it when it is half-dry, and finally harvest the black and winding sesame leaves. The whole process is carried out in high temperature and exposure to the sun, sweating is like tanning oil, and when you see sesame oil, you will think of the sweat on your mother's face. After the dried sesame leaves are wrapped in lotus leaves, they are tied to the beams of the house with hemp skin, and when they eat, they tear a hole and dig it out little by little. Later, it was more convenient, and the bamboo basket, woven bag, and plastic bag were packed and placed out of the reach of mice. After the sesame leaves are soaked softly, mixed with oil and salt, and put into the noodle pot, although the taste and taste are not bad, but this is indeed a helpless move in the era of material scarcity, there is no money to buy vegetables, this sesame leaf is not only a vegetable leaf, but also a staple food, so every household goes to pick a large number of them. Now that the material conditions are better, who will still suffer this sin among young people?
Heaven favors, there is a small reed swing in the West River. It not only provides children with a place to dig roots, pout bamboo shoots, play reed flutes, and dig birds' nests, but more importantly, they can make mats and sell them for money. When the reed was yellow, the eldest brother went to cut it back, and he had to cut it one by one with a knife, and then roll it with a stone. When my brother was not free, my mother would also go to roll the grate, holding a wooden stick, using her little foot that had been entangled, to kick the stone with a diameter of more than half a meter, back and forth countless times, until the grate became extremely flexible and could throw out waves. Mom is learning to weave reed mats with the eldest mother, sitting there bending over all day long, and it is nothing to suffer from back pain, and the eldest mother is tired of weaving the mat, and she can't straighten her waist until she dies. When the market opened, my mother rolled up three or two mats, carried them to the street eight miles away to sell, sold them for some oil and salt money, and then carried them back if they couldn't sell them. Nowadays, rural people don't buy reed mats anymore, and the reeds at the edge of the village are also inexplicably declining.
The times are changing too fast, and there are many material temptations, who can remember that there were colors, scenes, and family affection in this passing wind?
Fan Zhengli, pen name "Farmer Third Brother", director of the Social and Legal Committee of the CPPCC Nanshan District, Shenzhen, civil servant, has published dozens of essays in recent years in "Southern Metropolis Daily", "Shenzhen Business Daily", "Ploughing", "Nanshan Literature and Art" and other publications.