(1)
When I was a child, winter was always very long, so long that people doubted whether spring would come.
If you look for spring in ancient poems, you can find them everywhere. You can pick them up casually, and almost all of them are about Jiangnan: "The wild flowers are gradually charming the eyes, and only in Asakusa can there be no horse hooves." , "When the sun rises, the flowers on the river are as red as fire, and when spring comes, the river is as green as blue.", "Thousands of miles away, the orioles are singing, the green is reflected in red, and the wine flags in the water villages and mountains are winding.", "It is easy to recognize the east wind, and it is always spring with thousands of purples and reds."... In my In the imagination, the colorful colors of Jiangnan are all over the mountains and plains, and the spring here is really incomparable.
? This place is located on a plain, with no mountains. There is only a Huan River flowing slowly eastward. I have never cared about where it flows in the end, and I still don’t know the answer. The river is not wide, you can see from one bank to the other bank. The bank of the river is a large beach, covered with willow bushes, and there are also many shaped willow trees, none of which are too high and few are straight. The wind, frost, rain and snow of the years have given them various vicissitudes of shape.
? It's often "Whoosh..." After a few strong winds, I suddenly and inadvertently found that some buds appeared on the willow tree, and the branches became much softer, and I could already twist out the willow flute. The poplar trees suddenly became green, and these two trees were the earliest to sprout. Occasionally, I turned over a pile of firewood, and unexpectedly came out clusters of buds, which were goose-yellow.
Gradually, there are more wild vegetables and more flowers. It is a bit reluctant to say "there are many flowers". In fact, they are just dots. If you see a tree of purple tung flowers, it will be like this in our place. It is extremely stunning, but the tung flowers bloom relatively late, basically until the end of spring. Sometimes you can also see the flowers of Rehmannia glutinosa. There are many pink and purple trumpet flowers blooming on the upright stems, swaying on relatively steep slopes or in the cracks of stones beside bridges. Their flowering period is relatively short, and they are basically in bloom. In late spring and early summer. The only ones that are abundant and have a long flowering period are dandelions and purple groundweeds. The golden flowers of dandelions are like hearty and innocent laughter, scattered all over the beach, the edge of ditches... and even the ruts on the roadside. I have written about dandelions a long time ago, so I won’t go into details. Purple fields bloom with small purple flowers, shaped like orchids, and they are connected together in a large area, like purple stars on the ground, and like amethysts on the ground... Thinking about it carefully, it seems that these descriptions are not suitable. . Squinting, you can see the elegant purple color, vaguely there, like smoke and mist, like a purple dream...
When the weather is getting warmer day by day, the days are getting longer and longer. The children all took off their bulky cotton-padded clothes and were in an unprecedented good mood. Everyone walked together, pulling catkins and digging wild vegetables, and some carried poplar leaves home to feed the sheep... The trees in the fields were all green, mostly poplars. The poplar trees at that time were different from the ones now. When the leaves unfolded, they often had a blush. Looking at a row of trees from a distance, the dark and light greens were shining, and it seemed as if they had been painted randomly with a red crayon, giving you an indescribable color tone. , it’s so beautiful. The little friends are like little birds out of a cage, chirping, chasing and playing. Rather than helping the adults with work, they are taking the opportunity to have fun. It is often when the sun sets and the sky is filled with sunset that I suddenly realize the purpose of coming out. Everyone rushed to the willows, poplars, and fields in a panic...until night fell, and we had to go home with fluffy baskets that were barely full. We were scolded when we got home, but it didn't seem to affect us much. happy.
?
As soon as school was over, I took a basket and ran out to find food for the rabbits, completely ignoring my mother’s calls and scoldings behind me. Of course, digging wild vegetables was an excuse. I was intoxicated in nature, sitting on the grass full of purple lilacs. The sun was warm, the wind was gentle, and white clouds were floating in the sky... Everything was like poetry. As in middle school, it seems that growing up is a very far away thing. I dreamed about the day I would wear a long purple dress, as elegant and purple as the flowers of purple lily... Sometimes I would dig up a lot of purple lily with roots and plant them in the corner of the yard when I went home. Some were pecked by chickens, some were swept away by my mother, and some survived, but they were always wilted and lifeless, like malnourished children. I realized that nature was their root, so I stopped digging.
? The purple flowers bloomed year after year. I gradually grew up and went to school in other places. Once I read "February Orchid" by Mr. Ji Xianlin. I choked up several times after reading it, and my heart So shocking! The article writes that when his daughter Wanru was alive, every time he left Yanyuan, Mr. Ji would watch his daughter go away, "...the purple mist of February orchids on the left hand, and the green smoke of the weeping willows by the lake on the right hand..." This scene makes people feel It makes my heart hurt every time I read it. Ji Lao writes about the vicissitudes of the world with calm and natural brushwork. During the Cultural Revolution, I was devastated, but fortunately I had the warmth of my relatives. After the Cultural Revolution, Feng was able to find peace and prosperity, but his relatives passed away one by one. The February orchid, which has witnessed the joys and sorrows of the world, once made me suspect that it was the purple ground ding that I grew up with. But the article said, "The momentum is extraordinary, soaring straight into the sky." It made me feel that it was not Zi Di Ding. Due to the inconvenience of finding information at that time, I kept struggling with this issue in my mind.
It wasn’t until two years ago that February orchids were planted in the kindergarten next to the school, which solved my doubts.
The February orchid and the purple ground ding are similar in that they both have tenacious vitality and have purple flowers, but the February orchid is purple and white, which is more beautiful. Moreover, February orchids can grow very tall and have more flowers, which are larger than those of purple groundweed. Purple ground lilies grow close to the ground, and there are only a few small flowers on each tree. They really cannot have the momentum of February orchids. Thinking about it this way, in fact, among the limited literary works I have read, there is indeed no mention of purple ground bark. I have never seen any paintings that incorporate purple ground into the painting. I only read a poem by the Japanese writer Natsume Soseki some time ago:
? I wish to be like a purple earthworm,
? To be born as a small person.
I was suddenly startled at that time, which I will never forget. I would like to ask people in the world, in the long river of time, who is as insignificant as Zi Diding?
When I grew up, I realized that a lifetime is extremely short. Ten or twenty years is just a blink of an eye. Nowadays, almost all the plants in the fields that I was familiar with when I was a child have disappeared. With the extensive use of herbicides, the concept of weeds, vegetables and wildflowers has almost disappeared. The beach is all occupied, where can you see the willow trees? Almost none of the poplar trees are the same as before, and they are no longer so dazzling in spring. Occasionally I saw the purple ground bark, and I was very impressed by its tenacity. I dug a few of them like I did when I was a child, and planted them in the leek field in front of my door. It was called a leek field, but it was only a palm-sized place. Unexpectedly, this time the purple groundweeds actually bloomed vigorously. During the cold and hot weather, their number has surpassed that of leeks. Even one purple groundweed grew in my flower pot... I think it was the wind. Sow it. The child will pick flowers, tie them into a small purple bouquet, and put them in his small fish tank. The fish will hide and seek in the shadow of the bouquet, and the child will be very happy.
It seems to be back to the spring many years ago: the purple lilacs are blooming all over the grass, the sun is warm, the breeze is gentle, the white clouds are floating in the sky... everything is just like in the poem, as if growing up It's a very, very far away thing. The little girl dreamed of her long purple dress, as elegant as the flowers of purple lilac...
? Now, has her wish come true?
(2)
? The spring fields open her extremely warm embrace to us... A group of crazy children fluttered over like little birds, and the wind was filled with the joy of growth. The smell...
? The dinner table gradually became richer. In the second month of the lunar calendar, we have already eaten catkins, and then we can steam the elm money. The green petals are blooming in clusters on the branches. The children are picking up the elm money and covering it in their mouths. The adults are picking up the elm money and filling it in baskets. Talking and laughing, it is really as lively as the Chinese New Year... Yuqian Wowo is still one of the delicacies I can think of. April is coming soon, and the locust flowers are spitting out pistils, as white as jade, with an elegant fragrance. They are hung in strings on the trees, which is extremely poetic... If I were to write it, each scene would be an independent text, making people want to say no. Completely beautiful memories.
What I want to talk about today is digging wild vegetables and pulling out sprouts.
When the willow branches begin to sprout, the buds of wild vegetables have already grown in some sunny places, especially next to the wheat straw piles and firewood piles. Sometimes when you pull them with your hands, you are surprised to find that there are already big trees. of wild vegetables. The earliest one to sprout is probably Artemisia vulgaris, and there are many of them, but it tastes bad, so I almost don’t eat it. There is also a kind of wild vegetable with serrated leaf edges. I don’t know the name now. It sprouts very early and is plentiful. However, it is too bitter and bitter and no one eats it. Dandelions are also bitter, and generally no one eats them. The favorites are noodles and wheat straw vegetables, followed by shepherd's purse. As the name suggests, noodle dishes have long, smooth leaves that look delicious at first glance. I have never known what the scientific name of wheat straw is. It likes to grow in wheat fields and is also found in wheat fields. The leaves are wider than noodle vegetables, with downy leaves and small pink flowers. We carried the basket and felt excited and happy every time we found a wild vegetable. Sometimes I dig shepherd's purse, but I don't think it's as delicious as the above two wild vegetables. If the rain is not frequent, the shepherd's purse will get old as time goes by, and it is easy to become stringy.
We are not used to eating wormwood here, but I did eat wormwood when I was a child. My mother lived in the hospital for a while, and after she was discharged, the doctor told her to eat more wormwood. Where my dad works, we eat wormwood. I often go out to dig wormwood, and I can accurately distinguish wormwood from wormwood. "Artemisia in February and Artemisia in March" must be mastered in terms of time. The ones in February of the lunar calendar are still very small and very broken. The roots of the previous year have grown out. It is troublesome to pick them up, but the medicinal effect is good. In fact, I think the March ones are still medicinal, and the fluffy young shoots are completely edible. If it grows taller, it will really become a wild mugwort.
? Digging wild vegetables lasts almost throughout the spring.
? Sometimes, we still pull out the buds, and today’s children may not have heard of them. Thatch grows in relatively sunny areas, and the white, sweet thatch roots are very spreadable. They are usually long and can be found on slopes and along ditches. "Spring breeze blows and grows again." Among the dead thatch from the previous year, green thatch buds sprouted out from nowhere, giving the feeling of bamboo shoots springing up after a rain. The head is pointed and the body is fat. It tastes sweet when young.
Brushing the dead leaves with your hands, every time you see a bud, it makes people extremely happy, much like the process of treasure hunting. It feels addictive when you pull it out. You often have to pull out a lot of it before sitting down and eating it comfortably. When the Mao Ya can be eaten, it only lasts for a few days. Soon it becomes old like chewing cotton wool. Soon it becomes Mao Hua again, much like reed flowers. When boys see girls eating Mao Ya, they will sing their own children's songs to make a fuss. It is difficult to express in Mandarin, but it rhymes in dialect and is catchy. Some girls also made up insults with them, and some girls ignored them at all. In the end, they chatted and joined the team of pulling out the buds and eating the buds. I think everyone had never read poetry at that time, let alone wrote poetry, but they knew how to rhyme. No wonder the first poetry collection "The Book of Songs" contains many folk songs. It turns out that it is like this, life creates art.
? Time never stops...
? Although spring will come as scheduled every year, catkins and elm money have not been eaten for many years, and sophora flowers still occasionally appear. If you eat too much, just soak it in boiling water and store it in the refrigerator. You can still eat it in winter. In fact, our generation and the previous generation are the ones who like to eat it. Children don’t think it tastes very good. Among wild vegetables, wild vegetables such as wheat straw have long since disappeared. Noodles and shepherd's purse are sometimes seen in urban vegetable markets. They are artificially grown in greenhouses, and I will buy them to eat. On the other hand, Mi Hao is still there tenaciously, making people look at it like seeing an old friend, and want to ask: Are you okay?
? It is said that there are ten thousand acres of peach orchards here, all of which have been developed in recent years. Peach blossom viewing has become a major symbol of spring. People from other places and locals are noisy like a market, and the scenery suddenly becomes less beautiful.
? Once my family and I walked to a place with few people, and we actually saw wormwood on the embankment of the river. I was too excited to look at the peach blossoms and called on my family to dig together. Later, I continued digging in the rain. After returning home, it took a lot of effort to choose the right one and wash it. My mother asked me to boil water and drink it after it was exposed to the sun. I remembered that when my mother used to treat diseases, she would just boil it and eat it, which was very unpalatable. I had an idea to make steamed vegetables. When I put the carefully steamed and prepared dishes on the table, the children took a bite and stopped using their chopsticks. No matter how I talked about the benefits of eating wormwood, they insisted that it tasted like traditional Chinese medicine and refused to continue. eat. I don't feel that way. It's neither bitter nor astringent. It feels very similar to chrysanthemum. As a result, I was the only one eating it. I steamed the remaining wormwood into nests and put it in the refrigerator. I ate one occasionally and didn't finish it until the end of summer. Because artemisia has the effect of clearing the liver and promoting gallbladder, it actually has an excellent effect on improving the skin. But in the following spring, none of them had time to accompany me to the place ten miles away to dig wormwood. I understand their dislike of eating because they have never experienced it. And I like to eat, and I don’t mean that this is really a delicacy in the world. There is more or less nostalgic feelings in it.
? I don’t know if there are any thatchs that are lucky enough to survive. I have never seen them grown in greenhouses. Sometimes I want to go to the fields with the children to look for thatch sprouts, but the adults and children are busy. , it never happened. In fact, even if I go there, I don’t think I’ll be able to find Mao Ya.
I always feel some unspeakable regrets.
? (3)
? After a few rains, ? Purslane grew in the vegetable garden, oily and fat, which made people happy to see it.
? Spring has passed.
? Purslane Wowo began to appear on the dining table of every household.
? The summer grass and flowers begin to grow. The foxtail grass grew like crazy, and soon the chive patch was covered. After a few days, the flower breaks into a large area, blooming with pink morning flowers. The crimson flowers stretch out long flower spikes at the water's edge, with a graceful posture. There is also a plant that likes to grow near water but is not immersed in water. It has oval leaves and long stems and blooms with golden flowers, like a thousand-headed chrysanthemum. I don’t know its name. But I like this flower very much.
? I was about ten years old at the time and had a separate room of my own. My dad also asked a carpenter to build a bookcase for me because he likes reading. I even read his book on electric welding technology page by page and put it together with other books.
? I have also collected two jars, which are called "collections". This will really make people laugh, even ordinary people will laugh out loud. They were two pickle jars, which were of no use. They were placed in the corner. I moved them to my room.
Counting further back, when I was younger, I found a pile of porcelain in the corner of our house. There are elegant patterns on it. If you hold it up to the sun and look at it, it feels very thin and clear. I was as excited as if I had discovered a new world. I took out the small plates, bowls, and spoons inside to play with them. My mother may have thought that these were not practical, so she never told me. When I was playing dress-up, I would accidentally break it. If it was broken, I would take it again, and if it was broken, I would take it again... By the time I got to elementary school, these were basically destroyed in my hands.
? What’s even more pity is a piece of jade pendant (of course I didn’t know it was a jade pendant at that time). I found it in the drawer of a broken table and weighed it in my hand. It was heavy. It was not pure white, but seemed to show through. It's slightly duck egg blue, with one end bent over a pattern that I can't tell what it looks like, and the other end with a water ripple pattern, with a small fish on it (now that I think about it, it might be Pixiu), which is lifelike. I like it very much. I pulled out a very long burgundy ribbon, which looked like a fairy streamer. I also liked it very much. I took this ribbon and tied it on the jade pendant, and pulled it around to play with, and even knocked off a corner. My dad works out of town, and my mom thinks these are useless things, so no one talks about me. When I started to enjoy dancing with ribbons again, I took off the piece and threw it into the drawer.
I don’t know which year I was in school, but I was listening to the novel "Muslim Funeral" on the radio. As I listened, I suddenly realized something. I hurriedly ran to ask my mother if there was a small school in the area. Where is the corrugated fish, my mother said calmly, sold. I was shocked and asked how much it cost. My mother still calmly said, seventy. Seventy yuan was really not a small amount at that time. My dad’s monthly salary was only thirty or forty yuan. Besides, my mother always thought it was a waste. I told her it was jade, how could it be sold? She said calmly that she couldn't get it back, and the person who bought it didn't know where it came from. Later, I got confirmation from my dad that it should be the jade pendant that the ancients hung on their belts. This is the only precious thing I have ever seen, and I just missed it.
? At my age and in that kind of life, what can I collect? The two jars are dark brown in color, smooth in appearance and without blemishes. I think it is simple and elegant, and I like it very much, so I put it in my room. One is placed on the ground, and in it are the vigorous dead branches I collected. The other one is placed on the bookcase next to the window for flower arrangement.
? There are no suitable flowers in spring. Dandelions and purple groundweeds grow close to the ground, too small. Rehmannia glutinosa flowers fall off easily when touched, so they cannot be taken home. Tung flowers are beautiful, but they are too tall and difficult to break. Not to mention the fragrance is too strong. The Sophora japonica flowers are elegant and so plain that my mother would definitely not let them in the house. I planted a lot of flowers in the corners of the yard, sunflowers and cacti grew on the walls, and impatiens bloomed in profusion, but they were not suitable for flower arrangements...
I waited until early summer, Clusters of golden flowers like wild chrysanthemums bloomed, making for a suitable flower arrangement. I think this kind of flower should be a plant whose scientific name is "Inula". There are them along the canals in the fields and beside the puddles outside the village. Few people go along the canal, so it blooms better, with complete branches and leaves and large flowers. I easily folded a big bunch and carried them all the way home, overjoyed. I trimmed it a little when I got home and put it in a jar filled with water. The room suddenly shone brightly. The combination of the dark brown jar and this golden flower is so beautiful! I suddenly felt that there was more warmth and poetry in my life... Amidst the sound of cicadas in the afternoon, I was never tired. Sometimes I read novels, sometimes I wrote what I wanted to write, and sometimes I sat on the stairs and drew chrysanthemum branches...
As long as my dad doesn’t come back, no one in my family will criticize me (although my mother and sister also expressed doubts about my jars and dead branches), not to mention that I have always been good at my homework. As soon as my dad came home, I hurriedly hid my "masterpiece". When he saw me drawing, he became furious: I can't write calligraphy with a brush, and the calligraphy written with a fountain pen is ugly. How can I still have time to draw? I was trembling. He The angrier I get, the uglier I write. My mother sometimes whispers next to her: The results are already there, why are you still scolding her? My dad’s voice sounded like thunder to my ears: How do you compare with students across the province? How does it compare with students across the country? There are many people better than her!
He wished that I was born a genius, but I was just an ordinary child, and I didn’t want to compare myself to anyone! I just want to jump around and play and go to school happily. The pressure he put on me reminded me of Sun Wukong, who was trapped under the Five Elements Mountain, lonely and helpless, unable to escape no matter what.
His unrealized dream during the Cultural Revolution always rested on me. In fact, I was just a preschooler who could read more words quickly and more, which gave him a glimmer of hope. He hopes that his daughter will become a phoenix, and his wish is too urgent. He also wanted me to "carry forward" the calligraphy skills that my ancestors were good at. Really, this burden is too heavy! I have no calligraphy talent, no copybook, no teacher to teach me, only my dad’s scolding. So much so that I still have a shadow in my heart when I mention practicing calligraphy.
My dad is smart and talented, good at dancing, singing well, and has unique literary insights. He should have been a standard literary youth when he was young. It’s just that during the turbulent years, he didn’t have the opportunity to go to college. He was too strict with me and not very kind to me. I only let him read an essay when I was in primary school. He pointed at it and said how it was about this place. I suddenly understood that writing an essay requires looking at the small to see the big, and the main idea needs to be sublimated. Really, it helped me a lot. But he never thought that I was excellent. No matter what I did, he felt that I had too many shortcomings. At least that's what it seems on the surface. So much so that even though my actual situation was very good, I still didn’t believe in myself and felt that I was the worst. The compliments I heard were all from my teachers, never from my dad. So the compositions I wrote and the pictures I drew were always hidden from him.
Even if I got full marks on the paper, I would hide it because he would say that my handwriting was ugly. My two jars, which were so prominent in the room, made me afraid that he would throw them out. Fortunately, he did not criticize me in this regard, and even put a set of teacups on my bookcase.
Fortunately, he only had a short time to go home. As soon as he left, I quickly threw away the withered flowers and picked a big bunch. There were no inula flowers in autumn, so I folded reed flowers to make flower arrangements. If the reed flowers were thrown out by my mother, I would leave them empty... Sometimes I blankly thought about growing up quickly and leaving this too restrictive world. my home.
In the autumn when I was fifteen, the blue chrysanthemums began to bloom. I really wanted to go to a normal school in another place. My dad sent me to school. When he left, I burst into tears. I missed my beloved jar, the wild flowers in the jar, and the home I always wanted to leave... He didn't look back at me. , I don’t know if there were tears in his eyes so he didn’t look back. Maybe I thought too much. He has always been so strict with me, how could he tolerate me being so weak? Later, I went to school again, and he was the one who sent me off. . As he got older, he seemed suddenly more kind than before. He bought me ice cream and snacks like he treated a child.
? In fact, I gradually learned that my father has always been proud of me. He works in Hebei Province. I heard from my mother that every time he knew about my grades, he would say to his colleagues when he saw them, My third girl got the first place in the exam... so his colleagues have long known what his third girl is like, even though almost no one has ever seen me. When my compositions were published in books, when my compositions won awards in national competitions, when my name appeared on the list of winners... I never told him that I didn't want him to see what I wrote. On the contrary, his colleagues already knew my name and happened to see it in their children's books, so they hurried to him to report the good news: Lao Jiang, are you the third girl in your family? My mother said that my father was almost so happy. I asked everyone in the factory to tell me everything, and then wrote me a letter to confirm the situation. But in front of me, he never praised me a word. He always said that there are many people better than you. Sometimes I am so angry that I want to throw my chopsticks and tell him to find someone better than me to be your daughter.
Maybe this is a typical Chinese father. He wants you to be excellent, but is afraid of accidentally increasing your pride, so he often hits you. Fortunately, there was no rebellious period in my growth, and I gradually understood him. My first month's salary after I started working was all used to buy him good wine and cigarettes. I don't know how he would happily tell others about it. It was only later that I found out that he knew it was a fake bottle of wine when he took the first sip, but he still said happily that the wine my third girl bought was a good wine!
……
In this world, some things will have results if you work hard, and some will not have results if you work hard. My dad didn't tell me this, but I knew it.
Many years later, I am still an ordinary person. Every time I think about it, my heart always aches. After all, it was me who failed my father’s expectations. He worked hard to temper it, but I am not a piece of gold.
? Those innocent years, those summer flowers blooming, those father’s scoldings... will never come back.
? Because, they are all gone.
?