Figure: Source network
This Mid-Autumn Festival, I didn't go back to my hometown to spend the holidays with my parents. Because my 90-year-old mother-in-law is in my house, I can't leave.
Go back to your hometown to make up for it on weekends. The car stopped in front of the big brother's house and went straight into the big brother's house. He called twice and didn't hear an answer. Just walk from the side door and walk along the stone steps to the old house where I used to live.
In fact, my hometown is only a corner of the western end of the old house, and no one lives there. Just let my mother raise chickens and ducks. The rest of the old houses were demolished by my brother and a beautiful new house was built. My parents live in this new house.
Eldest brother bought grandpa four's old house and demolished it to build a villa. In this way, the eldest brother's villa and the younger brother's building constitute a very similar word "factory". The new house is in the horizontal position of the word "factory" and the villa is on the left side of the word "factory".
The distance between the villa and the new house is less than three meters, separated by a pool. The location of the pool is almost flush with the second floor of the eldest brother villa. The water in the pool used to be natural water extracted from the back hill with plastic pipes, but now it is tap water sent from the village. To the east of the pool is a cement road with thirteen steps.
At the corner at the end of the steps, there is a jujube tree in its forties. Mother often washes clothes under the jujube tree by the pool. If it is summer, the jujube tree is like a huge parasol, and the people under it are really much cooler.
Speaking of this jujube tree, it reminds me of the dusty past, as if I saw myself coming head-on at the other end of the years.
In the sixties and seventies of last century, in our hometown, the per capita land was less than two points, and the family really often couldn't open the pot. My generation, really, often steals sweet potatoes, corn and dates from other people's fields. It is said that dates will be ripe when the autumnal equinox comes, but at that time, we could hardly see ripe dates in our village.
Because the dates are not ripe, they have been stolen by our poor children. Sometimes when stealing dates, if the jujube family finds out, they can escape smoothly if they are lucky. If you are caught when you are unlucky, you will inevitably be beaten and scolded. But the hardest thing to accept is that after being beaten and scolded, they have to be sent home and bear heavier punishment from their parents.
So whenever I catch these past memories, I always feel that I am standing in the review of my life, making up an unforgettable sun and moon.
I remember the first month more than forty years ago. I don't know where my father dug a jujube seedling. Jujube seedlings are only as thick as little fingers, but not more than one meter high, with few branches and short branches. Purple all over, naked, without a leaf. I planted it next to this stone step with my eldest brother. Because the stone steps at that time were not as wide as they are now, and there was no concrete floor. Next to the stone steps is a vegetable field of more than ten square meters, which is surrounded by bamboo fences.
With the change of seasons, different kinds of vegetables will be planted in it. Even if this jujube tree is planted, vegetables are still planted, but vegetables and jujube trees enjoy different treatment. For example, when we water jujube trees, we never water the vegetables next to them.
In addition, sometimes I bask in pig manure on the ridge, and my eldest brother and I will secretly give it to jujube trees. When my parents found out, they scolded me again. In this way, in less than two years, the jujube tree has grown to more than one person's height and the trunk has grown to the thickness of the hoe handle. We are so happy that we are always looking forward to it bearing fruit early.
Generally speaking, jujube trees bloom at the vernal equinox. There are many buds on its bare branches. A few days later, the bud grew into green leaflets. Oval lobules sparkle, shining in the sunshine, as if they were really dotted with many green gems. As these emeralds slowly become more textured. Then there is a bunch of golden flowers hanging on the branches, emitting an attractive fragrance.
Su Dongpo has a poem: "Clothes and towels rustle, and jujube flowers fall." Jujube flowers fell, and tiny flowers fell all over the floor. Ants and those unknown bugs are crawling desperately among the flowers. It seems that beige flowers are their exclusive carpets. After the flowers bloom, there will be a string of dates between the branches.
With the passage of time, jujube changed from green to red, as if there were many dexterous little hands, which were made into thousands of lanterns at once and hung on the technical head. The breeze is blowing and the sun is shining. It is really called "the wind shakes the croissant tree and the sun reflects the chicken heart branches". Beautiful, beautiful. Don't say eat, just looking at these red and green dates is the sweetness in the depths of the soul.
Autumn wind blows gently, reading the time, the leaves of jujube trees fall from the branches to the roots. The deciduous jujube tree has only branches left. However, it seems more comfortable to take off the branches of fruits and leaves. Time has moved its trunk, and the skin injury is more conspicuous. The branch at the top of the lightning rod pierced the blackened sky, as if the sky could be pierced by it at any time.
The moon slid to the western hills in despair. Only the stars are still with the sky, waiting for the sunrise tomorrow.
Two days passed quickly. When I left, my mother gave me a small bag of dates under the jujube tree. Then he said sadly, "I will never eat such sweet dates again next year."
Yes, I can't eat it again next year. Because a new processing factory has been built at home, three-phase wires pass through this jujube tree. So, a few days ago, all its branches were cut off. Only the thick trunk of this washbasin is left, which directly becomes a pure telephone pole.
In the face of such a telephone pole, my mood once again stopped briefly.
The car drove slowly on the road by the river in my hometown. The river slept quietly in the arms of the village and became a beauty.
The rising sun swept the waking village and razed all kinds of trees to the ground. Sitting in the driving car, eating sweet dates, while puzzling thoughts, hanging on the branches of jujube trees again.
About the author: Chen Aijun is from Yushan, Jiangxi. Middle school physics teacher, prose and poetry lover. There are different essays and poems scattered in newspapers, magazines and online platforms such as Western Literature, Bi qianjiang evening news, Readers, 6: 30 in the morning, Bi Lufeng, Love Poetry Pavilion.