Often in the quiet night, I stand alone in front of the window, open the curtains, and quietly gaze at the night sky, letting my thoughts drift with the gentle breeze across thousands of mountains and rivers, returning to the dream. The place around - the small mountain village where I was born and raised. Once the long-lost emotions are loosened, longing becomes like a flood and tears fall down like broken beads. This is the only testimony of my homesickness.
Time flies, and the childish appearance of the year is now a bit vicissitudes. The wheels of time have rolled over our brilliant flowering season and are slowly pushing towards our thirties.
Having tasted the various flavors of life for the first time, we have slowly lost our childishness and willful temper. We have gradually learned to be patient, caring, and giving up, blooming our own beauty on the edge of reality and dreams. , show your own style. Play various roles well and do your best to be a good daughter-in-law, wife, and mother. When the day's "opera" comes to an end, the children have fallen asleep peacefully to the lullaby, and when the mind and body are finally "free", my mind often cannot help but think of my childhood hometown and my elderly parents, a place that I always miss endlessly.
I remember someone once told me that when a person starts to miss his hometown, it means that the person is getting older inside. I don’t know if my heart has begun to age, and I can’t tell when my homesickness began, but I clearly remember that as I get older, the content of homesickness changes again and again, and the homesickness complex changes again and again. But it is getting stronger day by day.
When I was in middle school, I missed my parents at home, my childhood playmates, and even more, the delicious bacon at home, the pickles made by my mother, and the big yellow dog wagging its tail at the door. At that time, I was homesick, but not intensely so. It was more of a material dependence, or a need to return to a safe environment, simple and direct.
After I went to college, due to the long time away from home, I couldn’t see my parents for half a year or even a year or two, and I was alone in a strange city. A new life, a new world, new habits, everything seems to smell of "uneasiness"
. Such a situation makes us involuntarily want to return to a familiar environment and a safe world, so our homesickness becomes increasingly intense, even intense. After a period of suffering, we slowly got used to the unfamiliar world, got used to a life without the nagging of our parents, and learned to face all the troubles and setbacks alone. Home has become a kind of spiritual nesting and a shelter from the wind. Missing home has become a sustenance and a catharsis for our feelings in our spare time or when we are hurt. I miss my relatives in my hometown, the hut in my hometown, my childhood playmates who have grown up, and the hillsides and cattle and sheep. Compared with the middle school days, the scope of our homesickness has slowly expanded, and the emotion has shifted from direct to abstract and implicit. The emotion towards home and hometown has gradually become hazy, like a veil covering the face of hometown, revealing The mysterious atmosphere is fascinating, and the concept of homesickness is no longer clear and simple. But when it comes to going home, I still feel like returning home. I feel an indescribable joy and deep affection in my heart, and my heart always feels so warm.
As we grow older and become wiser, the meaning of going home to us has gradually gone beyond delicious food or reunions with family and friends. Especially after working, settling down in another foreign country, getting married, and having children. Sowing my own blood and sweat on another piece of land, dedicating my youth and life, harvesting my own ups and downs, turned this foreign country into another "hometown", a place where I can have enough food and clothing. But a foreign country can never become my hometown. It cannot give me the attachment, warmth and emotion deep in my heart, because my roots will always remain in the hometown where I was born and raised.
I have also returned to my hometown several times. In my memory, the backward and backward mountain village Xiaozhai has undergone great changes. Tractors, vans, and motorcycles go back and forth on the newly opened rural roads. The simple and short mud houses used to be After being replaced with a brand new tiled house, the once stingy and stingy folks have become generous and generous, which makes me happy and dazzled at the same time. Neighbors rushed to bring home local specialties for me to take back, as if I were a guest from out of town, forgetting that I was once a genuine farm boy raised by them, a member of the mountain village generation. Thinking of these, tears couldn't help but flow out. That's how life is, a choice is a lifelong matter. When I was a child, I studied hard to leave my poor hometown and worked hard to live a prosperous life in a foreign country. But after getting a taste of life for the first time, I discovered that I actually wanted to stay in my hometown with beautiful scenery, quietness and tranquility, make a living by farming, and accompany my aging relatives, childhood sweethearts, and smart and lovely children through a plain and happy life. That's not a bad thing. It was only when Tao Yuanming was old that he discovered how pleasant and peaceful it was to "pick chrysanthemums under the eastern fence and see the southern mountains leisurely". However, once life has passed, there is no turning back. How can I leave everything in my foreign country behind, make a new choice, and start over?
Life continues, and we move forward bravely with the "tide" of society. When we are tired, we will naturally think of the warm arms of our hometown and the place where I can completely relax my body and mind. In fact, whether it is longing or nostalgia, when the "warmth" passes, the fatigue disappears in the diffuse night, and my hometown seems to have become a good place for my soul to "rest".
Fortunately, the hometown in my dream will not change with the passage of time. In my impression, the sounds, faces, smiles, every plant and tree in my hometown will always be the same as they were in my childhood: the big yellow dog at the door of my house, the The lively chickens and ducks, the ancient willows next to the campus, the quiet ancient well at the east end of the village, the friends we played with when we were children... everything is as kind and lovely as before, and this unspeakable emotion is like a misty veil. Haunting in my mind, impossible to grasp, yet real. Every time I think of it, it always makes me dream and have thousands of thoughts! My hometown will always be a lingering concern in my heart, and it is also a beautiful picture that will never fade in my dreams.
The unforgettable dream of hometown and endless love for hometown are our lifelong attachment and feelings for those of us who live in a foreign land!