I started reminiscing so early. ——Self-deprecating.
I don’t write novels, and I don’t tell stories. This is about old things from many years ago.
Where to start? ——Let’s start with writing poetry. Let’s start with writing poetry in college.
In the university in the late 1980s, when the highly political trend had not yet come, the campus was still in the dream of literature. Reading and writing poems became the dream of the students at that time. spiritual life. They were lucky enough to catch the tail of the hazy poetry trend in the 1980s, and everyone wanted to make their youth more beautiful. Holding Neruda and Baudelaire's poems in my arms, I pretended to chew them deeply.
After accidentally falling into that small university with high scores, I turned all my frustrations into poems.
Some like-minded people were envious and took it to the school radio station to read it out. So, in the restless late spring before the trend came, in the evening, on the way to the cafeteria or library, a very magnetic voice filled the air, reading aloud the melancholy and sad poems. "My sigh/is the only green plant in this desert." This inexplicable sentence quickly found many similar green plants for me, making me feel that there are many people like me buried in this ordinary campus. Recognize talented people.
The next thing is a bit troublesome. It was not just the pickled cabbage students in the Chinese Department who were moved by the poem.
When the boy called my name at the door of the dormitory, I rushed out with freshly washed hair. I remember wearing a dress, the white seersucker type that was popular at the time.
My pretty features - my roommate's comment - must have surprised the boy in front of me. His smiling eyes hesitated on my face, and my face turned slightly red. He said: I am looking for so-and-so.
I said, I am.
He said: I heard your poem on the radio. Like it very much.
I said: Really.
He said: My name is so-and-so, from the Department of Politics, and the president of the student union. ——He revealed his identity so clearly that I immediately felt like looking up. ——This looking up created distance, but distance did not create beauty. I suddenly pulled him far away from me - based on my historical prejudice, I vaguely felt that it was better not to get close to such a person - and his generosity made me, a little girl who had never seen the world, feel... Surprised.
I said, oh.
His name is very similar to the name of our first space hero, except that one word is missing.
I want to be your friend, okay? His generosity caught a little girl like me off guard.
I said, look, my hair is not dry yet. If you have anything to say, we can talk about it later.
He said, OK.
With bright eyes and white teeth, he smiled and left.
It is the kind of smile that can impress people. It's a pity that I wasn't enlightened at the time and was not moved. Because I was young, I didn't understand the cold humor contained in his name.
I received a letter from him soon. It was very subtle, saying that he wanted to make friends with the classmates in our dormitory. As the president of the student union with strong political overtones, I was slightly doubtful at the time whether his understanding had some political purpose.
At that time, he was ambitiously forming a society with strong political meaning. With my talent and knowledge, he hoped that I would participate - and at the same time mobilize all the students in the dormitory to go. This is a dormitory that is said to be home to beauties from the Chinese Department. ——I only gradually understood the “political meaning” in this.
I lacked the courage to mobilize and mobilized no one. Only one male student was mobilized, who was my classmate at the time.
In fact, this male student expressed his intention to participate without any mobilization - after he heard me talk about the person, the letter and my own intention to participate.
——This classmate later became my boyfriend, and later, now, my husband. This is something for later, so I won’t mention it for now.
Now let’s talk about societies. This classmate of mine attended the political department meeting for the first time and had a great conversation. Quite eye-catching. The chairman of the political science department finally gave a vague evaluation - after all, it was from the Chinese Department.
Later development was a bit hasty. The chairman said that in the future, he will become a diplomat - no matter what he takes to get a master's degree or a Ph.D., he will become a diplomat - and his wife should be a talented, beautiful, open-minded and polite woman. "You, at least now, are the most suitable candidate." His words did not contain any diplomatic characteristics, but were direct and urgent.
I felt hard and cold.
In the future, what if it is not the case anymore. Or what if you think it isn't in the future.
On an afternoon when peach blossoms were in full bloom, I invited the chairman of the political department and the classmate of the Chinese department to play in a park.
It is April and everyone feels the heat. As soon as we met, our faces would turn red and our hearts would beat faster. There are also those who watch the fun with cold eyes.
Very elegant and tactful. He didn't drop his white gloves, nor did he throw away his pistol or sword. I said, there is nothing to play, you two can play a game of chess.
At that time, I was learning chess and was very excited.
A student from the Chinese Department is not good at chess and has a little sweat on his forehead. The chairman of the political department played into his own ambitions and was eager to show off. He killed his opponent in two or three blows without leaving any trace behind. I stopped when I was ready, and I prevented the occurrence of low self-esteem and arrogance in time.
No need to stop, I understand.
I don’t intend to find a chess master and compete with each other all day long.
On the way back to school, I told the chairman, please don’t look for me again in the future.
For those who are as unlucky as me, it is better not to seek to be a noble lady. Otherwise, it's unaffordable.
The political trend that shocked the world came soon after. The chairman of the political department was eager to give a speech and perform. From now on, they will go their separate ways.
Let’s talk about poetry.
Before this, when I first entered college, I would receive a letter almost every other day - it was said to be a letter, but actually it was a poem, and each time it was full of several pages - When I graduated from college, I sorted it out once. I stapled it together and made it into a thick letter. It’s also a love letter.
The author of these poems was a frail and slender scholar. At that time, he liked to wear a light green short-sleeved shirt. He was tall and thin, with a fair complexion, which was the type I liked when I was a girl. He had a pair of slender hands. I remember when I gave him a photo album - there was a photo of me there - he took it with those hands, which really moved my heart, so much so that I thought those hands should be the hands of an artist.
He used these hands to write letters to me, write poems, and call me by my name by kissing me with pen and paper - those youthful evenings full of thoughts, walking on campus or reading a book. Collection of poems, when I calm down, my heart is often inexplicably excited - those hands are writing letters to me, writing my name.
That kind of enthusiasm every other day only lasted less than a year. One day, I said to him, please stop writing to me, I have someone I like.
I haven’t seen a letter from him since then. When I received it again after a while, the tone of his letter had become objective and calm, and the sentences he wrote were no longer divided into lines and were not so long. . The words seemed to end at the exact moment I asked him to stop. It wasn't until later that I vaguely realized that he was sad at the time, but even now, I don't know what he was thinking. I'm no longer confused, so I just didn't ask these questions.
Those poems can only belong to youth. I think.
Unlike his poetic letters, the non-poetic letters I received are not included in my calculations. They have nothing to do with poetry.
When I was approaching my first year of college, I started writing poems for a male classmate. His poetry skills were definitely not in the category I recognized, but I still wrote the poem to him. There is a saying that goes, young people in love are all poets. It was at that time that he wrote the only poem in his life.
There is one more person I have to mention. My deskmate is a boy with a bit of a mysophobia. He wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses and was withdrawn, but all I remember is his smile, which was a little shy and a little proud. He likes poetry, and those poems that I think are very profound. It was under his influence that I began to read "Flowers of Evil" and "Selected Poems of Neruda". Unfortunately, I am still stupid and don't understand it. . Most of the poems he wrote are the kind that I find difficult to understand. But he just likes to write to me and read. Therefore, in class at that time, students almost never skipped classes, and they only skipped classes that they didn't like to listen to. We would exchange our own poems in such classes, and of course most of them were his. He used small pieces of paper to write small, weak characters, which were a bit lumpy. Every time he finished writing, he would write "Ms. Pingzi please correct me", and sometimes he would write "Use your little ax to chop it down." In fact, I really don’t understand his poems. It was many years later that I understood his hidden loneliness. Even in the Chinese Department, there were few people who wrote poetry, and not many of his poems could be read. He pinned his hopes on me. Until now, I still feel guilty that I didn’t really understand his poems, nor did I make the effort to read his poems. I ignored a lonely heart seeking understanding.
Twenty years have passed, and I would like to ask this deskmate, how is he doing now? How is everything? However, looking at the catkins in front of me, I asked who should go?
Now, I can still find the envelope in which we exchanged poems, which has been transformed into a small package. It is like a bulging tomb, burying our youth, the vigorous but wasted years of our love of poetry and literature.
Many years later, I told my daughter about my deskmate in college who wrote poems to me. My daughter asked, "Has he fallen in love with you, but it's hard to explain?" I replied blankly, no, he knew that I already had a clear love partner.
"That doesn't stop him from liking you." My daughter said. Kids today are just different.
No, times are different. I think. But I can't explain it to my children.
No matter what, youth is always related to poetry.
——Look back to twenty years ago. In the future, it’s better not to look back. If you’re too close, you won’t be able to see clearly.
(Haha, blogger, your article is a bit narcissistic!)