Take five minutes of red clouds and pick bamboos to go home

Text/March Fish

When I looked at the calendar in the morning, I found that it was already August. If you are still in school, it means it is summer vacation.

As a person who has worked for many years, there is no holiday to speak of. Many planned itineraries are just plans after all. Being entangled with all kinds of tedious things every day and living a life that cannot be escaped, this is probably what we have to do.

I really miss the summer vacation when I was a child. I had a long vacation and could be with my family.

Every morning, the mist covers the village, and I wake up to the sound of birds. Come. Taking a breath of fresh air, the day started like this, extremely refreshing.

What does daytime mean?

In the summer, the weather was very hot. I got up in the morning to cook. My parents took advantage of the cool weather to go out to work. My younger brother led the old buffalo and grazed on the field ridge. The chickens, ducks and geese in the yard were chirping.

A very happy morning.

After the meal was ready, I stood on the high field ridge and called my parents and younger brother to come back for dinner. The voice was not loud, but it was very penetrating. After getting their reply, I jumped home.

Sometimes, I don’t want to go home and want to stay in the fields for a while. In this season, the fields are filled with the fragrance of rice seedlings. It’s a very clear and light fragrance. I like it so much that I can’t help but take a deep breath, and then another breath, feeling comfortable all over.

Turn around and go home. The village is hidden among the green trees. You will see many uncles and aunts carrying hoes. Some have just gone out and some have come back for dinner. The air was filled with the aroma of food. Passing by the door of the neighbor's house, they had breakfast in the yard with a small table. How nice it is to be together as a family, talking and laughing, not caring about what we eat, but just being together.

I really like mornings like this, with a strong smell of fireworks, and like an eternal painting in my heart.

Many years later, I have never experienced such a morning again. I can only quietly unfold the picture in my memory and quietly reflect on it. There were my childhood self, my young parents, and my lovely younger brother.

Evening is also the peak of happiness in the day.

I cooked a meal early, went to the ancient well behind the house to get a pot of cool water, and put it on the small table in the yard. There are simple meals on the table, including green peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, tomato and egg soup, all from the own vegetable garden, fresh and sweet. There is also a big watermelon, which is frozen in a bucket on the side. The watermelon is of course grown at home.

The sun sank quietly, and the sky in the west was covered with colorful clouds, like the beautiful scales of fish. When my parents come back at dusk, our family can have dinner. My father would always take a sip of cool, sweet well water first.

It’s just this ancient well. Later, because the house installed high-pressure water pumping equipment, the ancient well was sealed. Now that I go back, I probably only remember the approximate location of the ancient well.

But I miss it. Every morning and evening, many uncles would pick up a load of well water from the ancient well and carry it home. I miss the long songs. It’s just that nowadays, very few villages can still see ancient wells like this. People have access to tap water, so who can still remember ancient wells?

Sometimes, when I lift water from the ancient well, a cute little frog sometimes jumps out of the bucket. Fill your heart with joy and then release them, this is the original ecology.

I like the fields when the sun is about to set. The golden sunset also gildes the village. I don't know when, in the breeze, I smelled the fragrance of lotus, so light and so sweet. Smelling this smell, every cell in the body feels extremely comfortable.

In the evening like this, the brothers came back from grazing the cows and went swimming in the river. The youngest cousin was not very good at swimming. The little aunt was worried and followed the group of boys all the way. They laughed and said, "Little aunt, you are so shy." That laughter was long and distant.

In a flash, we are all grown up, the village is empty, and the river is still the same small river. I remember that when I went back during the Chinese New Year, the surrounding villages were reflected in the river, and they were in a state of depression. The group of children who used to be happy have long since grown up. Some have moved out of the village, and some have gone out to work and rarely come back. I can feel the loneliness of Xiaohe.

In this season, in addition to beautiful scenery, my house also has watermelons and grapes.

My father grows watermelons every year. He is a master at identifying watermelons. He can tell the ripeness of watermelons by tapping them with his hand. It's a pity that none of us have learned it.

Because every household grows watermelon. When passing the melon field, either this uncle or that aunt will call, "Take a watermelon and go back to eat." If you are more enthusiastic, just chop up the watermelon and let me hold it and eat it.

Scenes like this will never be seen again. Although watermelons are grown at home as usual, I rarely have the opportunity to go back during this season.

The most profound memory in my memory was when I went back on June 1st, the year I graduated from college. Everyone in the village seemed to have made an agreement that year to plant melons around the river.

My mother took me to the melon field and saw many familiar uncles and aunts, and everyone greeted me warmly. Ten years have passed in the blink of an eye, and the uncles and aunts who greeted me back then have become old men and women. Time is really a silent killer, it quietly changes people's appearance, and I also grow up.

I miss the village of the past, the friends I had at that time, and every morning and dusk at that time. It’s just that after many years, we can never go back.

Even after I returned, the countryside had already changed. Many people have moved out and only come back when the farming season is busy. The younger generation all live in the city, and many people have left and never returned.

Two days ago, I listened to "Half a Pot of Sha" sung by Liu Keyou. There is a line in it called: Take five points of red clouds and pick bamboos to go home.

At that moment, I couldn't help but recall my childhood and my village.

Grab five points of red clouds and pick bamboos to go home. It was my most ordinary life at that time, but many years later, it has become an indispensable memory, so beautiful, but a little sad.

Yes, there is no going back.

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