One.
I remember that it was the first session of the evening self-study. The wind at the end of April swept away the uneasiness and heat, flipping the pages or fiddling with my broken hair, silently leaving the leaves cracking and flowing with resinous invitations. This kind of night with something on its back is the easiest to pull people into the vortex of unknown memories. Looking out the wind, the dark green trees outside the window towered in a row under the gray-blue night. The absence of the bright lights of the city center is particularly lonely.
The edges of the leaves fade into a blur in the fading night, like on the outskirts of a city where there are few vehicles. A few years ago, near my home, when the subway was not fully connected, the hotel in the corner of the city could be regarded as high-end. Looking out of the window, a certain angle is the same night and woods. When the whole family was lazy to cook, my father always liked to drag us to the hotel for dinner. I don't understand, it is clear that finding a restaurant is the same taste, why do you want to pick expensive? At that time, he was too young to vaguely question his father's love of face and love of display. However, this little idea was soon swept away into the night by the wind.
Two.
Writing this, I can't help but ask myself, when I think of my father, what do I think of? In the memory, the pain, the complaint, the triviality of life, always gushed out first. I remember when I was in the third grade, my grandmother gave me a glass lamb the size of a palm. It was the most delicate and beautiful thing I had ever seen as a child, clear and clean, and people couldn't help but think of such a beautiful image as the wind and the moon. I can't count the number of times I've been lying on my desk, staring blankly at it.
Such a complete childhood dream, with a quarrel between father and mother, was lifted high and shattered. I watched him smash into the ground less than half a meter away from me. I may have cried, or I may not have. I was just scolded to take a broom and collect its remains. It was too trivial, too ordinary, but I had to admit that it was a real pain for me. Ask my father again a few days ago, he has long forgotten about it. I suddenly realized that the glass had not been swept clean, and some of it had long been stuck in my heart.
Like the trees outside the window that are completely shrouded in darkness, maybe you only see the darkness, but there is indeed life growing quietly in the cold, and there are also leaves rubbing, rustling and whispering.
Three.
As I drew to a close, I realized that my father should have such a tree in his heart. On an ordinary evening a few years ago, on the way home, my father wanted to touch my head, but finally he hesitated and withdrew his hand and asked, "Do you want to go to school in other cities?" I was silent, he added: "Maybe the salary over there will be a little higher..." "I'm about to take the entrance exam." I interrupted him almost willfully. At this fork in the road, the olive branch of the more favorable work in other cities reached out to my father, but I was a burden, and he eventually gave in to the burden. Maybe my father insisted on going to that high-end hotel for dinner, just to feel that for a moment he was not consumed by chai rice oil, salt, ginger and vinegar tea, and did not look at the life of being overwhelmed by cumbersomeness. Only then will he be able to talk in a relaxed manner.
We always hope that the road ahead is smooth and magnificent, but life is heavy and messy. None of us can say what is really choking our throats on such an evening. So hidden in the night, the unknown trees grew freely, and only when the window was pushed open would the wind chew these worn-out leaves for us. "You did grow up." Father looked at me. When I was a child, I was only proud, but now I am vaguely aware that my growth predicts his aging, and he has tolerated me for eighteen years. In that window, I didn't understand my father, and he never saw me.