Text/Liu Huangtian
Source/Reader Magazine, Issue 5, 2020
I love to observe the love of old people.
Chinese couples with deep enough seniority have practiced the philosophy of "bun stuffing is not on the pleats" for a long time, integrating love into the whole process of life, and it is also reflected in all the details of daily life.
In the morning, it was the old lady who was lying in bed, and the old man got up at 6 o'clock and wandered outside to listen to the birds.
An hour later, he returned home, sat down at the table, and the hot cereal porridge was served, and the temperature of the coffee and the color of the toast had certain rules.
After eating, the two read the newspaper separately.
If they see interesting, novel, and controversial titles, the two will talk, otherwise, when they get up, they don't have to say a word.
Image source: Panorama Vision
Then, the old lady went out to buy vegetables.
If it's a weekend, she goes to the supermarket to dance at the community's recreation center and learn yoga regularly.
In the afternoon, the old gentleman sat down on the sofa, lay down when he was sleepy, and woke up an hour later, always covered with a soft blanket.
They all know that there are more mouths than when they were young, and when they are old, their anger will grow, and they don't know why.
Fortunately, they all understand that it is not a big deal, the children have become a family and moved away, and the younger generations do not bother them with anything.
The reasons for the quarrel are minimal, such as the SOUND of the TV is too loud, the mobile phone does not know where to put it, and the orchids on the balcony have forgotten to water.
The more serious disagreement is that in terms of receiving friends, the old man should make a shabu-shabu at home, and the old lady is unwilling, in order to wash too many dishes.
The old man said I had come to wash it, but she didn't want to, on the grounds that he had stirred up the kitchen with water stains and caused her to take three times as long to clean it up.
Quarrels, ignored each other, night in double beds, back to back.
The next day I woke up and forgot.
The old time is passing faster and faster, and in the blink of an eye, the grandchildren are in elementary school, and they still remember being held by their grandparents for photos on the day of the full moon, and the old man almost can't sit still, because he is too happy.
This scene seems to have happened yesterday.
None of them mentioned love, believing that saying "I love you" all day long was an overheated act of foreigners.
They even have a very indifferent concept of "love", and the habit is enough for them to be at ease.
It turned out that they were nothing more than "interest" generated by the principal of the passionate love in their youth and the common happiness and hardships of middle age.
If the following conditions do not occur:
One party's empathy is discovered, and it is faced with the choice of marriage and survival;
One party suffers an accident or is terminally ill, and his life is in danger.
They just kept it going until the day of the showdown of fate.
At this point in life, spouses who do not have to hold hands are connected by invisible roots underground.
Their marriage is good in the extremely ordinary, because of the ordinary and no one interferes, mixes, stirs up, until the end of life, suddenly awakened, the principal and interest of love are spent in the entire beautiful life.
Author: Liu Huangtian, source: Reader Magazine, No. 5, 2020, original title "The "Interest" of Love".
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