I asked my father: How old is our village, how many accomplished villagers have we produced, and how old is the old locust tree... My father looked confused, then looked indifferent, and waved his hand: "Who still remembers these? Plant when spring comes, harvest when autumn comes; watch the flowers when they bloom, and pick them when they bear fruit; live happily when the weather is good and weather the disasters. At our age, we work while we are alive, and we die when we die. After all, living well every day is a blessing, don’t think about it so much!” Although the words are a bit crude, the reasoning is very precise. This reminds me of two poems in Yuan Ji's "Feelings" of the Qing Dynasty: "You don't know how many times the moon has fallen when the blackbird crows. You only remember the blooming flowers but not the year." Think about your parents guarding the village all their lives, farming according to the seasons, and accompanying the years. In life, I have seen so many flowers bloom, and my appearance is old, but I live clearly.
I once visited two old people in the mountains. I didn't care about them in the first half of their lives. The days they spent raising chickens, growing flowers, painting, and writing articles made me envious. That day, the old pear tree in the courtyard was covered with yellow pears. Under the tree we made dumplings together and talked and laughed. After dinner, the aunt spread out the rice paper and painted "Moumei Picture", and the uncle recited "Pastoral Poetry" affectionately. The two of them help each other and appreciate each other, which is also a pleasing scenery.
After lingering among the marigolds and cockscombs, the old man asked me to climb up the pear tree, pick a few bags of pears, bring them to the visitors, and respectfully gave them the "Plowing Medicine Garden" "Collected Works", presumably this small courtyard is the "Pharmaceutical Garden". We invite you again and come often next year: to enjoy pear blossoms and peonies; to pick mulberries and dates; to scramble eggs and stir-fry seasonal vegetables. The two people beside the fence smiled like children.
Although many years have passed and I don’t know whether the old man is still in the mountains or what his condition is, my calm and poetic life has always been in my mind. I even remember a "joke" that my uncle Yun Danfengqing said: "I They both fought hard in the storm and landed safely. In this life, except for chopsticks, everything else can be put down. In the final analysis, life is about eating well and living well, regardless of age. I don’t remember too much.” I guessed that the two old people must have stories, but they just chose to forget them and not mention them.
The more you experience, the more you will remember, and of course you will also have to forget a lot; this will make it easier and not fill up the limited memory of your brain and make your life laggy. The best person to do this is the mirror: it only reflects the present and does not remember the past.
I accidentally found a small mirror left at the bottom of the desk drawer. It was given to me by my wife not long after we got married. Now, I try my best to look through the mirror and see what it looked like back then, but I have completely forgotten it and don’t even remember it. Come to think of it, this mirror has shown me when I was young and happy, and also when I was confused, depressed, and sad, but now it only remembers me as I am now. Well, the past is the past. I smiled in the mirror. It turned out that the raised corners of my mouth and crooked eyes were not ugly. I also know that this ugly look contains traces and accumulation of the past, but the clouds have drifted away, and now it is the best look. Although my youth has passed away and there are stories hidden in my eyes, my eyes are still clear and bright. This is me in the mirror now.
On our wedding anniversary, my wife and I traveled halfway across the mountain city to visit the small courtyard we rented when we got married. The old Chinese chrysanthemum tree is as green as yesterday, and the morning glory outside the courtyard is still playing. They must have forgotten us, or have never remembered us. Seventeen years, in the blink of an eye, I also did a subtraction question to calculate the number of years. For the rest of my life, I want to hold my wife's hand tightly and cherish every meal every day, every day and every month, and even a smile and reconciliation after the cold war.
I asked my father, how many years have you been married to my mother, how many fights have you had, how many plays have you watched... My father still looked confused, and then said indifferently: "Why do you remember this? We live like that every day, day after day, just like boiled water!" My father, who couldn't cook before, just steamed a pot of steamed buns and gave one to my mother, who had been cooking for her whole life but couldn't cook anymore: "Hurry up while it's hot! Eat!" The food was steaming in front of them.
After eating, my father sat on a dead tree stump in the yard, smoking a cigarette with a dull expression and looking at the mountains. Father *** The rings of the old poplar tree below are now like the circles of water in the river of time. Time is silent, but in the passing years, all questions are answered.
In a daze, the water started to swirl, and the father was sucked in little by little. The father pulled the mother, and the mother held us, returning all the things that had passed by and the things outside of the body...