The fragrance of sunshine
lin qingxuan
I met a young farmer in a sunny town in the south.
It was late spring, the first crop of rice had just been harvested, the golden thread of spring was pouring on the warm land, morning glory was lingering on the fence, birds were chasing on the neem tree, and bamboo shoots were springing up in the bamboo forest. It is really a very happy feeling in the world to think carefully about the sound of plants emerging from the ground and growing in the sun.
I was sitting in a rice field with a farmer. Next to it, the rice has been spread out in the field. Due to the sunlight, the rice ridge shone with golden luster, and his skin was dyed a thick copper color. I am a guest of the farmer's house. Just now, we emptied the rice in the cereal bag together and leveled it with a plow. It was not a plow, but like a small hill, ridge after ridge, so that the rice on both sides of the mountain could get the sun on the same day. It seems that it has been like this for thousands of years, because as soon as the sun shines, the eight-claw rake pushes the ridge into the original valley, and the rice turns over, and the originally buried millet becomes sunny.
The farmer fanned the sweat on his face with his hat and turned to me and said, "Take a deep breath."
I took a deep breath and spit it out slowly.
He said, "Have you smoked?"
"What I smell is rice, which is a little fragrant." (expressing surprise, shock, etc.)
He smiled and said, "This is not the smell of rice, but the smell of sunshine."
The smell of sunshine? I looked at him puzzled.
The young farmer led me to the middle of the rice ridge, reached for a handful of sunny millet and told me to smell it hard. At this time, the ripe aroma of rice plunged into my chest. Then, he grabbed a handful of muddy millet for me to smell, but it didn't smell. This experiment surprised me deeply, and I felt the magic of sunshine. Why is it that only suntanned millet has fragrance? The young farmer said he didn't know. He came across it while digging rice to bask in the sun. At that time, he was still a college student, occasionally helping to farm in the summer vacation, dreaming about the colorful life in the city. Since he found the smell of sunshine when he was sunbathing in the valley, he made up his mind to stay in his hometown. We sat on the edge of the rice ridge and talked about the smell of sunshine. Then I almost smelled the clothes I had just dried as a child, the newly dried quilt, the newly dried calligraphy and painting, and the smell of sunshine just flowed out of my childhood. Since the dryer appeared, the smell of clothes has disappeared in my memory. I never thought it was sunshine.
The farmer has his own philosophy. He said, "You urbanites should not underestimate the sunshine. When there is sunshine, the air tastes different. Just say flowers smell good. Have you ever distinguished the flowers in the sun from those in the house? What about the different aroma? "
I said, "Where are the scents of cordate telosma and epiphyllum?"
He smiled even more proudly: "It is a kind of yin fragrance, not strong."
I just sat on the edge of the rice ridge, taking deep breaths again and again, hoping to appreciate the fragrance of the sun and see that I am so solemn. The farmer said, "In fact, you don't need to take a deep breath to smell it, but your sense of smell has deteriorated in the city."