Nostalgia: Haunted by dreams, it is the old tree of Grandma's house

#离家远了就是乡愁, what do people think is nostalgia #

In 1992, at the age of 16, with my curiosity and dreams about the world outside, I walked out of the mountains without understanding and embarked on a long road of studying and making a living. Time flies, and it has been nearly 30 years since I left my hometown. I went from a hairy boy to a middle-aged man with two sideburns. As I grew older, my homesickness grew stronger.

When my father died, I was about two years old. In the small northwest county town at the end of the 70s, the widow mother had so hard to support 4 children, and in desperation, the mother turned to her mother's family for help. Since then, under the protection of my grandmother and grandfather, the help of my aunt and uncle, my mother has worked hard and pulled the four of us brothers and sisters into adulthood, and I can say that I grew up at my grandmother's house.

Grandma's house is a courtyard at the end of the alley, a courtyard built more than 90 years ago, for feng shui, when building a house, in front of the door planted an elm money tree. After a hundred years of watering, the elm tree has grown very tall, and its lush figure can be seen in the distance at the mouth of the alley, and since I can remember, its waist is something that an adult can't hold.

Not far from it, it is the well of Grandma's house, and the first thing the uncle does every time he comes home is to put on a bucket of well water, drink it painfully and happily, the well water is sweet and cool. The well is surrounded by vegetable gardens, and in summer and autumn, cucumbers and radishes are washed with clean water, crisp and delicious. Around the vegetable field, pear trees, apricot trees, cherry trees are planted, and in autumn, climbing to the trees, fresh apricots, cherries, and pears can be eaten. Every year after the Mid-Autumn Festival, the brother-in-law and grandfather will pick the pears and put them under the eaves, and after the brewing of the severe cold in autumn and winter, it will become a unique frozen pear around the Spring Festival. Melt it by the fire and melt it, and a stream of sweet pear water melts in your mouth.

Grandpa and Grandma's main house sits north to south, the steps are about half a meter high, the eaves are about two meters deep, and more than 6 meters wide. Put on the low square table, that is, the dining table, and the desk where we (mother and brothers and sisters have 8, so our cousins have 17) to write homework, when we were young, we either wrote homework at the small table or played crazy in the yard. Grandparents and mothers and aunts sat on low stools and gossiped about the family. At the bottom of the steps to the window are two flower beds, in spring and summer, the fragrance of flowers is charming, there are moon seasons, Maran, etc., but I don't like flower beds, when the flowers bloom, there are swarms of bees, and accidentally you will be stung twice.

Grandma's family is a warm kang, in the winter, grandpa and brother-in-law burn the kang warm, our cousins sleep on the hot ondol, looking at the snow falling softly under the eaves, listening to the sound of the kettle on the stove, carefree sleep until daylight.

Under the hard work of my mother, the four of us grew up poor but happy. My mother was very strict with my studies, so I studied OK, and in 1992, I was admitted to a secondary school in Changsha, left my hometown in the late autumn, and embarked on a long road of studying for nearly 30 years to make a living. By chance, he settled in Yangcheng for more than 20 years...

For various reasons, the number of times I returned to my hometown was not much, and every time I came and went in a hurry. The last time I went home was in 2018, when the long-distance bus had 8 hours of bumpy mountain roads to get to the provincial city of Lanzhou, and now it only takes more than two hours by train. The changes in the hometown are also changing with each passing day, with the railway, the high-speed highway is also under construction, and the construction of the new city is also quite large-scale. Looking at the unfamiliar street scenes, listening to the familiar sounds of the countryside, the past and reality are intertwined, and the thoughts are endless and emotional.

"The young man left home and the boss was still old, and the township tone did not change the sideburns. Children don't know each other, laughing and asking where the guests come from. ”

All kinds of tastes came to mind.

Grandpa and uncle have become ancient, and uncles and aunts are also dying of old age. The brother-in-law still lives in the yard at the end of the alley, and the yard is basically the same as it was, and the hundred-year-old elm money tree still quietly guards the old house. Not far into the alley, you can still see its figure in the distance. Suddenly, I felt that all the hard work and fatigue along the way had disappeared, and it was the feeling of arriving home.