Long years, long road.
The days have stopped, and people have grown old, as if everything around them has calmed down.
Life, with leisure time, slowly open your heart, to find the old days of the past, those things and people.
……………
(1) Cooking tobacco
The sunset reflects the red sky.
The village, shrouded in the sunset.
The family locust, the finches that had just flown back, fell into the dense foliage.
Drinking cigarettes, straight up into the sky, the air filled with the smell of fireworks.
On the high post in the distance, the crowd after finishing work, the children who returned from the grass, looked at the place where the drinking smoke rose, and accelerated the pace under their feet.
The old house, stained by fireworks for many years, reed foil, purlins, earthen walls, black turned ink. Bellows, stoves, large iron pots, pot lids made of straw, V-shaped willow branches, pots and pans used to make pots and forks, and pots for noodles, and various cooking utensils on the stove. A few old bricks, a wooden board, a bowl rack, a dozen thick porcelain bowls, smoke and dust obscuring the color of the wooden boards, chopstick cages on the earthen walls, a bamboo chopsticks, a stove lamp flashing dim light.
The night after dusk, in the fading sunset, grew thicker and deeper.
The stove fire is burning vigorously, the bellows is rattling, the stove is filled with new firewood, and the bellows are pulled a few times, the firewood is lit up in an instant, the flame embraces the bottom of the pot, the water in the pot is stirred up, the smoke is burned, through the kang road, the chimney rises into the sky.
Remembering the cooking smoke, the memory is like a babbling stream, slowly flowing...
My home, at the south end of the village, not far downhill, a south-facing trench, separating the land on the east and west sides, the west slope is called West Shanggang, and the east slope is called South Park.
When I was a child, I went to Nanwa to fight grass, today I walked up the west slope, tomorrow I passed the South Garden, there is the farthest pine forest in the West Shanggang, and there are vegetables, melons and fruits floating in the South Garden. Follow the crossing all the way south, pass by the alfalfa field, and see the high south embankment.
In Nanwa, no matter how far you go, you can see the cooking smoke rising from my chimney.
Can't forget the cooking smoke, can't forget the hardships of the years.
At that time, it was very poor, and the orange stalks distributed by the production team were simply not enough, and every family had to work hard for firewood all year round. Especially in late autumn, the leaves on the trees and the grass in the field will be picked up by the half-grown children. After winter, on windy days, adults and children run outside, running to the crossings, trenches, wolf dens, ravines and ravines, with bamboo brooms, grass baskets, big baskets, running again and again in the cold wind, because if you go late, you will be won by the first person. On a windy day, it blows at night, no matter how early you get up, there are people who arrive early in the cold wind.
Throughout the winter, children go to collect firewood every day. People of that era probably always remember that when they picked up a back of firewood, they could see their mother's smiling face and words of praise. I am the teenager who was once, the generation that grew up collecting firewood.
Firewood, soft firewood, hard firewood, as the name suggests, the so-called soft, such as wheat oranges, leaves, hay and other relatively soft and crumble flammables, when cooking when using firewood, or flapjacks and the like to eat edible firewood, that is, soft firewood. Hard firewood, that is, thick orange stalks, old wood, red wattles, etc., of course, is used when steaming dry food, stewing chicken, and stewing meat.
Cooking smoke, as if it is a call of the mother, carrying a basket of grass, shouldering a pile of firewood, approaching home, climbing uphill, the smell of cooking smoke, the aroma of cooked rice, let me forget the pain on my shoulders, the tiredness of the body, a call of the mother, a glance at the mother's love and pity, the cooking smoke breathed, opened the pot, the heat that rose up, the incense of the rice, the warmth of home, my happiness, the taste of life, the beauty of life, all in the unforgettable juvenile time.
If we say that the years are like songs, people's youth time is the most beautiful song.
The blue sky, the white clouds, the village, the people's home, the cooking smoke, is the home, is the innocence of the young son, is the young mother.
The bellows rattled, the stove crackled, and the mother hummed softly, which confused the baby's heart.
(To be continued)
10 May 2021
The year of the ugly year of The Year of the Ugly was March 29