That old tree
I always like to start with this sentence, although I don't write much.
What I can think of for the time being is the tree walking in my heart …
( 1)
Sitting on my father's shoulder, I can always see far away. From the hillside at the head of the village, a hen followed by several chickens, a group of returning cows at the corner of the ravine behind, and pebbles embedded in the soil or asphalt next to a pair of cloth shoes that followed me one by one.
Why doesn't Xiaoshi go with me?
So he leaned on his father's shoulder anxiously, trying to get rid of the stability of his shoulder and go down to the ground to find out. With small, fat hands, grab the thick hair and pull it hard, or pat the face close at hand. After trying all available means, but none of them were available, I tried my best to sit on my father's steady shoulder and pee directly.
Then he was lifted from his shoulders by a pair of big hands, giving him a moment of freedom. How far can a toddler climb on the ground?
In the late summer afternoon, the road in front of the door was covered with dense poplars. The strong light of the western sun fell on the ground through the leaves, but the temperature was not enough to drive away pedestrians. My father was walking on the road under the tree, and I sat on his shoulder and started the killer. Only one trick works, and you get this freedom.
Father stopped and put me on the asphalt pavement with a little temperature. At that moment, the small white stone embedded in the black asphalt pavement did not go. Ask another why? Start crawling, oh, it's not a stone walk. Climbing faster verifies this conclusion.
For an ignorant conclusion, 15 months ago, a wire half buried in asphalt pierced my ear, and now only a black spot and a slightly white meat particle are left.
The next week, I was fed by my mother at home. My mother occasionally complains about my father's words and loves me mercilessly. At this moment, my father always looks innocent and sorry, like a child who made a big mistake. He is not as old as I am now.
"Little fatty, your ears don't hurt. I'll take you out to pick fruit. " I can face everything on my father's shoulders again.
The advantage of sitting high is not only that you can see things in the distance, but also the advantage of giraffes. For the elusive apple tree in the yard, it immediately became within reach. Riding on his father's neck, standing under the tree, let his two hands choose among many fruits on the tree. A red apple has become a target, but the strength and size of the hand is only enough to drag the apple off the branch, but it is not easy to hold it in the hand. The result was a blow in my face.
A series of naughty jokes spread far and wide. ...
The apple tree in the hazy memory has been grafted on the apricot tree. A stout branch stretched obliquely at a flat angle, and it was always covered with green or golden apricots in May and June, which made a group of greedy monkeys like me always want to climb up and steal their hearts. If you climb, you can only stand under the tree and drool, but if you hit it, whether it is sour or sweet, you can always fill your mouth and be taught a lesson afterwards.
The leaves of apricot trees have begun to turn yellow in June and July. At night, my father will hang a simple swing on that oblique branch, put my sister in a flower skirt who just went to kindergarten on it and push her to fly very high. I'm already a skinned pupil. In that case, I usually stand enviously beside my sister's crisp laughter and fantasize that I am sitting on a high branch overlooking everything. Autumn wind will slowly take away an apricot leaf until it leaves a tree trunk with abrupt branches in the yard, until winter snow comes after late autumn and covers it.
Later, I wasn't sure if I remembered it wrong or if it really happened. Apple trees were grafted to apricot trees for one year, and then to peach trees. However, that peach tree didn't leave me a good memory, because the peaches it produced were large and colorful, but when it was opened hopefully, some bugs would always crawl out, which made a hopeful eater lose. A few years later, trees with three different fruits were cut down for firewood.
(2)
In the transitional years from kindergarten to primary school, there is not enough room at home for younger brothers and sisters to live with their parents. It means that one of the three people is going to grandma's house, which is three minutes away. My sister is still young and my brother needs to get up early in primary school, so I became the best candidate.
In the evening, the sun sets rapidly from the gap between the two mountains in front of the door, and night falls. The incandescent lamp under the eaves will be on for a long time. Father is sitting in a chair under the steps, smoking a cigarette and chatting with his neighbors. His feet are always afraid of me. I always hope that the sun will not set before sunset, and I always hope that the incandescent lamp will be turned off later when it is still on. Adults can't listen to all kinds of topics. What they can hear is the chirping of all kinds of birds when night comes, and the chirping of all kinds of insects accompanied by the middle of the night. Occasionally, my father will send me to pour a cup of tea, or go to the grocery store to buy a pack of cigarettes.
The time when I was most afraid came. Soon after the incandescent lamp is turned off, grandma will come and give me a candy and take me away. Three minutes' journey from this hospital to that hospital is always a long journey. Grandma is pulling me along, but I always look back, feeling a lot of grievances and feeling like an abandoned child.
There are many kinds of white hemp planted on the roadside, which grows most vigorously in late summer, and the green ones are connected one by one, which separates the narrow village between the two mountains, like the sound of a car whistling on the road at night, giving the village a beautiful night.
When the wind blew, the horse gave a loud cry, and she couldn't help turning her head to look. She always felt that there was something behind her and would hold grandma's hand tightly.
Grandma's house has a wall. There is a big walnut tree outside the wall in front of the civil structure gate building. Every time I go here, there is always a ghostly insect cry, and I don't know where it comes from, and it is very rhythmic. I am afraid of this voice, and I am curious about where he is and what he is calling. It's like waiting regularly, welcoming or rejecting my arrival.
This walnut tree grows sideways, with deep roots and thick growth. There is an obvious crack next to its courtyard wall. The big canopy gives shade to the yard in summer and brings delicious walnuts in autumn. However, the annual autumn harvest season also brings troubles.
Grandma will sun a lot of beans under the tree. As soon as the leaves fell, I was arranged to pick them up. At that time, I kept thinking in my heart that the annoying tree would soon be made into a small bench for people to sit on.
My great-grandfather was still alive when the walnut tree was there. Under the tree is where my great-grandfather tied the cow. Another summer, the old cow I rode gave birth to a calf. In the process of herding cattle, the calf unfortunately fell into the water and was fished out and put in the hay under the tree to bask in the sun. I squatted on the ground counting ants and saw the calf looking at me. Those bright and clear eyes looked at him deeply, just as I looked at him. Curious about the outside world. The calf barked at me from Cleisthenes, and I barked at Cleisthenes like it. Interest comes, no matter how many ants there are in that hole. In fact, children who have just entered primary school can count to 100 at most, so how can the ants in the hole be counted clearly?
The wet and sticky hair of the calf is twisted together at a critical moment, and the old cow licks his children from time to time. I was fascinated by it, and I approached to reach out and touch my calf. I screamed before I could reach the calf. I was brave and young. I was picked out by the old cow with his strong horns and fell heavily on the haystack. I was completely scared, forgot to cry, and lay motionless on the haystack in a falling posture. Great-grandfather reacted, threw away the dry hookah being twisted in his hand, rushed over and picked me up, looked at it and was not injured, and spit it out before he could spit out the smoke.
The walnut tree is the same as my great grandfather. I always want to climb the tall walnut tree. I imagined lying on my father's shoulder and seeing the chicken in the yard next door, the newborn pig in the pen and the small walking stone on the ground.
Great-grandfathers and fathers have the same shoulders. They can get anything they want on their shoulders. The night after being attacked by an old cow, my grandfather held me in his arms. There are always mouth-watering sweet potatoes buried in the ashes of the fire under the eaves. I ate peeled fresh walnuts and wild cherries brought back from the mountains by my great-grandfather when he was herding cattle. I heard a story that is still fresh in my memory. It is about an old cow that attacked me.
This story happened a few days after I was born. This is the first month of cold winter. Great-grandfather was very kind to cows. In winter, other people's cows are just kept in pens to feed some grass, but his cows will rush into the mountains to eat some grass from time to time. Shortly after the New Year, my great-grandfather drove his cow to the mountains. In the early morning when no one got up in a fairly quiet village, it was already evening when he came back.
Great-grandfather said it began to snow in the second half of the day, and he drove the cattle back. At the corner of a mountain road, I met a wolf in front of me. He was still young at that time. In order to protect the most precious property in life, he picked up the sickle in his hand and began to be on guard. The calf was obviously panicked and a little separated from the herd. The wolf began to approach the lost calf, which was very dangerous. Great-grandfather can only stand guard around the cattle. But I saw the old cow rush out, stand between the calf and the wolf, erect a solid horn and face the wolf. The wolf froze. It should be that he did not think of the courage of the old cow. He stopped to confront for a while. The old cow began to attack the wolf. After several rounds of fighting, the wolf lost and escaped. The cattle are safe.
Staring into my eyes and listening to my great-grandfather tell the story of the old cow, my hatred for the old cow began to turn into awe, just like my father and great-grandfather. While eating walnuts and wild cherries, I think about the sweet potatoes in the fireplace. When I am full, I should go to bed. In fact, you have fallen asleep in your great grandfather's arms.
One winter, the walnut tree extended to the branches in the northeast corner and ushered in a nest of magpies. Walking under a tree, occasionally insects or dead branches fall, and when you are unlucky, you may be hit by bird droppings. For me, washing my hair is a painful thing. Bird droppings stick to my hair, and my mother always washes my hair as clean as the cupboard she just cleaned, without any allowable odor. Of course, I struggled with such sanitary requirements and endured the pain of pulling my hair. When my father saw too much, he thought of a way to shave his head once and for all. This method is really effective, but it left a bad mark on my whole childhood. Every time I cut my hair, I always feel blue for a long time, standing in front of my mother's big wardrobe dowry with floor-to-ceiling mirror, staring at that ugly head, and my face is full of tears.
My mother said that my crying is the most characteristic. I understand it as personality, which has also been verified in the process of growing up. I always cry silently, stand quietly, close my eyes and look at nothing, so that I can be comforted or reprimanded. This silent crying is a silent way of protest, a way of expressing attitude and feelings, and a complaint against all dissatisfaction and injustice. This character gradually disappeared after something happened later.
Great-grandfather disappeared with the walnut tree. My impression of my great-grandfather is only that bronze hookah that snores loudly, that gray-black coat pocket and cotton-padded jacket with big crotch, and those nameless things that are twisted into thick pieces with corn beards as cigarettes. And the walnut tree, now only a small piece is left, lying quietly in grandma's kitchen as a chopping board.
(3)
My aunt was a teacher when I was in kindergarten. I hate her for letting me sit in the front row, and I hate her for lecturing me and hitting me in front of the children. I always feel that I deserve special care, no homework, no exams, no work. But, contrary to what you think. Maybe the rebellious period came too early, so I drew a full circle on the math paper of the final exam. There is a piece of paper with a big egg on it on the kindergarten wall, which I want to show my father. As you can imagine, beating is inevitable.
Grandma sent me to school at that time. In the morning, I was dragged up, walked out of the narrow wooden door of the guard room and walked towards the east end of the village. In the middle of the distance between kindergarten and home, there is a slope, and the persimmon tree on the slope is where grandma sent me to school to the end. Grandma always hides behind the persimmon tree and sticks out a bald head when she is not paying attention. When she turned and walked back, she quietly followed her back. Grandma was at home, so was I, and then he was scolded and sent to school.
Knowing that you can't hide from school, you always repeat that trick every morning. Grandma should also know what's going on behind that tree, but she acquiesced that such things would happen again until I got bored and stopped doing it.
At that time, one was sleepy, and the other was to protest against my aunt hitting me in public. There should be dissatisfaction if you don't sleep with your parents at night.
When I was in fifth grade, I happened to see persimmon trees hidden in the back window of the classroom. I always try my best to get a seat near the back window. Fortunately, the results were good at that time, and it was not difficult to change seats. When in a daze, or thinking, persimmon trees occupy the whole eye.
Once, an old man died next to a persimmon tree. Under the persimmon tree, there was a spiritual shed, and the adults made a fire. Children like me are always sad when they encounter such a thing, but they think it is a rare joy. The night light in our eyes is like a street lamp that stays on all night for the village where night falls early in the city. Energetic children always resist the fact that adults go to bed early. Or is it a rare light in the dark, hiding a unique and unknown mystery of some secret, which attracts children like me and wants to explore.
This persimmon tree is the first time I began to know things independently. It was cut by my grandfather when he was in charge of repairing the village road.
(4)
Grandma's old house was demolished by her father in junior high school, and a two-story brick-concrete building was built on the original pile foundation. The red tile veneer is very imposing, standing on the expressway hundreds of meters away is still very eye-catching.
There is a photo of Lao Huang at home, which is a photo of his father and brother. The background is the cracked courtyard wall of walnut root. This background also left me a photo later, chubby and dissatisfied with wearing a plaid pullover. My brother is wearing the same clothes, holding a real pistol that my uncle remembers proudly, while I am holding a plastic toy gun. This expression is very classic and is regarded as a joke at home.
There are four civil buildings. In front of the Westinghouse, there is a big heatable adobe sleeping platform. There is an old desk in front of the heatable adobe sleeping platform, and there is a TV and a kitchen behind it. A small window was opened on the wall between the heatable adobe sleeping platform and the kitchen to deliver meals. Across the atrium is the East Hall, which is transparent from north to south and supported by a wooden bed. This room is cool and comfortable to sleep in summer. There are three houses near the east of the yard, which are my great-grandfather's cowshed. Later, when the cattle were sold, the mansion was demolished.
In this small red brick yard, two different kinds of pear trees grew up with their parents, one in the northwest corner and the other in the center of the yard. The tree in the northwest corner is long and thin, straight and tall, with some pink and white flowers and sweet fruit, much like my brother-in-law's handsome. The long and strong tree in the yard, with pure white flowers and sour fruits, looks like uncle's style.
In March and April, two pear trees blossomed and the ground was covered with layers of petals. The aroma attracted buzzing bees and flying butterflies, as well as swarms of ants.
The steps outside the gatehouse are a big green slate with wooden piers on both sides, just enough for you to put your ass down. I sat on one side like a guard, with my head propped up in my hands, as if an adult were thinking. Grandma seems to have told the story that my father and uncle smashed gunpowder on the bluestone board. My father blackened his hands, my uncle blackened his face, and then he was severely beaten as a long memory.
If at the end of summer, after sitting on the wooden pier, I am happy to climb the thick sour pear tree, find a gentle branch, ride on it, pick an eye-catching pear, eat it at will, and let the full juice drip to the ground, causing ants to fight around. At that moment in the tree, I always fantasize that I can shuttle between trees like a monkey in a journey to the west.
My impression of my brother-in-law began under a pear tree. In the summer vacation of primary school, besides playing wildly in the mountains and rivers, there are also annoying summer homework. My brother-in-law is a soldier in the northeast and doesn't often go home. For such a strange face, it is inevitable to be embarrassed when you can't understand the bottom line.
Summer in the mountains is not hot except at noon. Avoid the high temperature at noon, set up a table under the pear tree, and no one can escape from Le Jia, my brother and sister and my second uncle. Brother-in-law leaned against the pear tree, staring at the four of us doing our homework and occasionally tutoring. Soldiers are serious and don't give opportunities for desertion.
Later, the trees in the northwest corner stopped picking fruit, the leaves began to curl and turn yellow, and many caterpillars were born. One winter, my father pinned an axe to his waist and cut off all the branches of the pear tree from the top. I looked up at the branches falling bit by bit under the tree, thinking that the diseased tree would be knocked down by a raft, so there was only one left in the middle yard. It might be a little lonely.
Next to the toilet behind the house, there is also a plum tree, which grows in the shade. It's thin and has lush leaves. In July, the thin branches are covered with plums, standing on the ground within reach. Stealing food a few times before taught the tongue a lesson to remember, that immature youth will never forget. At the end of August, plums will all turn golden yellow, which is brighter than apricot yellow and can seduce saliva at a glance. However, my mother always won't let me eat more. The reason is that eating too many plums is harmful to my health. This idea keeps me away from plums now.
At the foot of the mountain further north along the plum tree, there is a "hen flower". Throughout the summer, the slender and soft branches always have pink flowers. I always choose a basket of flowers with a wooden pole with a hook at the front end after dinner or before breakfast according to my grandmother's instructions. Grandma will mix the picked flowers with corn flour and steam out a soft and delicious yellow cake. Later, it was determined that the "hen flower" in grandma's mouth was hibiscus.
The pear tree in the middle of the yard was cut down after several years of solitude. Lotus and plum trees also gradually disappeared. Maybe at some time when they left home for school, the memories that can be drawn out are just some of their most beautiful shadows. I want to write more lines to describe them, but I can't be abrupt.
(5)
The human brain is always strange. They keep a clear memory and don't dig. On the contrary, the more they have a little shadow, the more they can't remember clearly, and the more they like to search deeply.
Close your eyes and you can always go back to that beautiful spring. The leaves are just a little green, and the yellow forsythia has not come yet. The taste of Chinese New Year always lasts for a long time. Wearing a thick yellow sweater prepared for the New Year, I tried to walk with the little steps I just learned, walking very carefully and probing step by step, for fear of being cheated by the earth.
The trumpet-shaped pink tung flower the size of a foot fell to the ground. I am very happy. Although a little bloated, I bent down and carefully selected one, holding it in my hand, as if I had won the most precious treasure in the world. Tung flowers fell to the ground one by one, spreading layer by layer, and some were lost. Like ants on the ground, they keep spinning and giggling, dreaming like they are asleep, and never want to wake up.
I didn't feel any thoughts in my heart, but I felt it was a picture on paper. A dead tung tree, falling tung flowers, all pink. Fences, distant mountains, black dogs, none exist. There is no distinction between urban and rural areas, no distinction between status, no reason to struggle, and no worries about livelihood. Even no identity, no gender, no outlook on life and death.
How simple. For a newborn baby, it is no different from a newborn flower or a kitten. Everything is in our nature, but it's simply something that people will miss and pursue all their lives.
Tung flowers are in full bloom and fall because of the wind.
The white cat at home was one month old when she first came back. I am full of curiosity about a cup, a basin of jasper and a hairpin. Sleeping at night will get into my arms, not because I have feelings for people, but because the bed is warm. Whether she has just changed the sheets or not, she can go up if she wants. You can eat the good food you just cut, and you can drink the water in the teacup. When I was about one year old, I heard a lot of shouting and got used to prohibition. I can always stay at home according to people's wishes. Occasionally I see the first side of people and I hide. I know I am wrong.
That tung flower always haunts my mind. If I want to remember more, I will become less. One, two, three ... Not anymore. When you start school, you should learn everything, know that mom and dad are a kind of identity or role, respect the old and love the young, know that there are cities and villages, know that there are village heads and governors, know that there are middle schools and universities, know that money can buy a lot of things, know that work, know that marriage, and make different choices and efforts for it.
I want to remember the kind of heartless animal-like memory, which is gradually submerged by all kinds of information crammed into my mind, getting farther and farther away every year and sinking into the deep sea of the cerebral cortex. The process of growth is progress, and the information obtained includes likes and dislikes, both of which are obtained, and some things have no choice. Like and dislike always play games in my mind. When dislike has the upper hand, I will look for the simple, blank and happy flower sea where my life began.
I don't remember when the tung tree disappeared, but I still remember the white stubble stump with annual rings. There used to be a vine next to the cut apple tree. At the end of August, when the grapes were ripe, the ants went crazy overhead, and many grapes fell off after chewing half. My favorite grapes were eaten by these little things, and I began to look for revenge in the ant hole on the ground. There are many ant holes around the tung stump. They hold a lot of wheat, beans and rotten grapes. Wearing open-backed pants, I peed in the ant hole around the stump every day until I talked about the tung tree, and my mother said it was my toilet.
The old house, which is always full of broken wood on both sides of the steps, has been pulled down. So far, two old houses in the house can only be seen in old photos. The apple trees, vines and tung trees that have been grafted twice are all gone.
Poplars are planted on both sides of the road in front of the door, dense and high, like two walls. The tree trunks in midsummer are covered with cicadas, and the roads in late autumn are covered with yellow leaves. Catching cicadas, pulling out petioles, and learning to ride bicycles are all deposited in memory with the disappearance of rows of poplars. Now there is only one lonely road, which lies between two mountains.
A way home, getting closer and closer.
(6)
According to Grandpa's geomantic theory, the east-west back mountain is a Wolong, backed by the vast Qinling Mountains and facing the winding Luohe River.
The sun rises at the foot of the mountain in the east every day. There is an old pine tree on the first hill. Great grandfather should be the oldest person in our village. His memory of Lao Song is like that, about a thousand years ago. Ten people couldn't hold on, and they grew up in a crevice with no soil around them. The trunk splits from the middle, like a split loofah. Legend has it that there was a white snake. When it was entrenched in a tree, lightning struck the snake and the old pine tree split.
The village primary school is just below the old pine tree, and graduation photo of the primary school was photographed by the whole class around the old pine tree. Some photos are yellow, and I haven't seen them since the old house was demolished.
Old pine branches burn easily, and red liquid will flow out when burning. Old people say that the old pine tree is the embodiment of the gods, and it will bleed when it burns. In rural areas in the 1990s, power outages were common. In winter, children would carry a charcoal basin to school. Perhaps this is the real reason why the old pine branches split.
On the other side of the river in front of the school, there is a long dam that spreads along the foot of the mountain. From a distance, it looks like a lion's ass with its tail dragging on the ground. Rows of willows climb obliquely on the heel of the dam, and together with these old stone groups, they guard the largest grain field in the village where generations behind them depend for survival.
Old willows grow obliquely away from the dam. Every spring, new branches hang on the slowly flowing river and sway with the water plants. Catkin flying poplars came in tandem, and the back of the oblique willow was climbed bare by us. Some willow branches are broken down to make cool hats, some are cut down to make fences, and the rest will be cut down and burned in winter. In winter, the old willow leaves its bare trunk lying there, facing the old pine tree, talking about grown-up children and old people who have passed away, talking about old houses that have been pushed down and new houses that are being built.
The sun sets from the gap in the western hills. On the last hill, there is a Gleditsia sinensis tree. Great-grandfather's grandfather carried it on his hand and planted it in the courtyard of his ancestral home, where he spent his childhood. My ancestral home used to have four houses, but now there are six graves. My grandfather has moved down the mountain for six generations. Grandpa now lives back in the yard where he lived as a child, next to the acacia tree that watched him grow old.
That is the tree that fascinates me the most. The trunk is straight and needs three people to fold it. About 3 meters from the ground, dotted with some branches and unique spikes. Standing under the tree and looking up along the trunk, a magnificent and neat sense of admiration arises spontaneously.
So far, every time I go home, I have to go to the back hill, see my grandfather's grave, see the acacia tree and sit under it for a while. Looking down at this familiar village from a height, I think about the buried old people around me and the old trees that have disappeared.