Zhuji, the city where I live, is located in the valley basin between Huiji Mountain and Longmenshan. It is a small southern town surrounded by mountains and rivers. From Huanshaxi, the source of Lingyan in Zhongtian, Zhejiang, from south to north, all the way through the canyon, and the water floated out of the upstream valley. On the edge of Zhuji City, blocked by Taozhu Mountain, the clear river made an S-shaped bend along the foot of the mountain, like a green snake sword, gently dividing the town into two, so the town was divided into Jiangdong and Jiangxi.
Although the town is small, it is famous. More than 2,500 years ago, in the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a peerless beauty stone, born in Zhuluo Village by the Huansha River, less than a stone's throw from the house where I now live. Beautiful stone has been the hometown of stone since ancient times. Occasionally, friends come from far away. Finally, they always go to the Xishi Concert Hall in the south of the city to look for beautiful scenery. No matter how careful you are, after pushing a cup for a change, you will also find an excuse to take a ride on the streets of the small town and stand on the Huansha Bridge to secretly observe the passing women. When I come back, I will always sigh with envy. Zhuji is really the hometown of teachers. The women in this street are always more watery than those in other places.
Whether the present "Beautiful Stone of a Small Town" is more beautiful and watery than that in ancient times, of course, wise men have different opinions and dare not jump to conclusions, otherwise the old lady will be suspected of selling melons. But with the crossing of Huansha Creek, the town has a little more charm of Jiangnan, which is true. On both sides of the Huansha River, which passes through the city, stone dikes are made of square granite, and the paths beside the river and the top of the dike are paved with pebbles. Dozens of miles along the coast, willow trees are shaded, peach branches are fluttering in the river, and cliffs are in full bloom. In the alleys of the city, there are also peanut trees. The seasons change, the fragrance is delicious, and the British are colorful, which makes people dizzying.
In the early morning mist, or in the evening light, on the path next to Huansha River, women with red shirts and white skirts walk gracefully from time to time, like red clouds floating over green willows and through the shade of purple peaches. The laughter of the bell fell on the blue river, starting a waterfowl that only foraged on the beach by the river, flapping its white wings, skimming the boat in the middle of the river, like an arrow, and plunged into the Woods on the other side.
The noise of streams, the swing of willow branches, the night berthing of ships and the walking of women, the small town of Zhuji, where I live, has the tranquility and serenity envied by the residents of neighboring big cities such as Shanghai and Hangzhou.
Living in such a small town is naturally very comfortable. However, the advantage of a small town is ease, and the disadvantage is also ease. The river breeze slightly intoxicated by tourists on the banks of Huanshaxi enchanted the distant guests and their own courtyards.
I have been working and living in this city since I graduated from college. First of all, I work as a reporter in a news organization. Every day with an interview book, a camera, a box of business cards, or by bus, or three certificates, I travel around the towns on both sides of Huanshaxi. Later, the administrative organs were transferred to cross the Taiping Bridge on the Huansha River N times a day, or walk or ride, like a pendulum, stopping accurately between the unit and home.
Over time, I changed from a young boy to a young son-in-law, and then upgraded to a young father. Every day, I am with my wife and children, taking care of flowers and gardening, and making friends with friends. Ordinary days are like a pool of stagnant water. It seems that there is no wave, and it is so comfortable that people are worried. But as Luxun said, if life is too comfortable, work will get tired of life. Comfortable, in fact, it is easy to kill people's will and ambition.
Fortunately, the rational mind still reminds me from time to time that I must not be satisfied with such ease. So, in Guang Chen, everyone else is playing cards and shopping. I often shut myself in my study, light a cup of incense, drink a cup of tea, read or write, laugh or think. Several years have passed, and I have erased a lot of words intermittently.
When I accumulated more words, I began to think about writing an anthology for myself, but it seemed that I put it down every time I mentioned it. I always feel that there is still a lot of youth to think about, and there will always be more decent and marketable works in the future. However, after I officially entered politics in 2003, there appeared "confused ears" and "complicated work". After all, publishing a book has been delayed, and a delay is ten years.
Until the winter before last, my uncle suddenly left.
two
It was a Sunday shortly after the National Day the year before last, and I went back to my hometown Xiyan with my wife and children. After dinner, my mother was busy washing dishes in the kitchen, and we chatted with my father on the table. In the early winter season of Huiji Mountain, it always gets dark quickly. After six o'clock in the afternoon, the whole sky became dark. Dad said that Nannan will go to school early tomorrow morning. If you want to go back to the city, go back early. It's too late and the road is not safe. I said yes, I took my bag and my cell phone. Just as I was about to get up, I suddenly heard a slight muffled sound at the door.
I turned to look, and it turned out to be uncle. As soon as he put down his hoe, he laboriously removed a snakeskin bag from his shoulder and put it on the threshold. The snakeskin bag is bulging and a little heavy. Uncle grabbed the rope in one hand and said cheerfully to me in a hoarse voice, "Adong, this is the sweet potato I just dug from the mountain." Last time Yanmei went to Shanghai with a bag on her back, Uncle knew you liked it. Uncle keeps this bag for you. " I haven't seen him for months. His face is darker and his eyes are a little tired, but he is still very angry.
But I didn't expect that the meeting after the National Day turned out to be the last time my uncle and I met in our hometown.
After returning to the city from my hometown, about two or three days later, Da Meiying suddenly sent me a text message saying that my uncle had gone to the hospital for a physical examination, and the result was very bad, even if he would not live to the end of the year.
20 13 On the winter night when the first winter snow fell in the south of the Yangtze River, my uncle went to a distant paradise with permanent regrets.
Uncle is an ordinary farmer in China. He has been farming in his hometown almost all his life. Except for his "feat" of winning the trust of the villagers with his diligence and hard work, he spent the rest of his life in the ordinary. He has always been frugal. If he hadn't married Hainan's daughter, he insisted on going back to his mother's house in the first half of last year and dragged his uncle and aunt to Sanya, even though he had never flown or traveled in his life.
"The son wants to be filial, and the relatives are not there." I'm over 30 years old, and there are several elders at home who sent me off, but none of them shocked me. I haven't slept a wink for almost a week after seeing my uncle off. My heart always hurts. I dream, but I have some strange random dreams. I have an uncle in my dream, sometimes I don't. I struggled to wake up and found it was dawn.
From small to large, we are all running around the city in order to realize the so-called ideal, inadvertently ignoring the most important family and the simplest touch around us. I was born in the mountains, although I have no talent, but because there are no tigers in the mountains, or because I have been engaged in a career close to writing, I have been uneasy since I was a child in that remote mountain village and in the familiar hometown accent. My uncle's sudden departure made me decide to give myself a "military order": in any case, I will complete the plan to publish at least one collection. Not for anything else, just to make a small summary of my 20-year work and study career, and to make a small report to my relatives, teachers and friends who silently care for and support me.
three
"The lights are in Qiantang for three or five nights, the moon is like frost and people are picturesque." Every night after the "written pledge to fulfill a military order" was issued, I was in an office building that has been around for several years, reflecting a light rain and a flower shadow outside the window, facing a lamp and a wall of books, quietly thinking, quietly remembering and quietly smearing words in the quiet night when a spring breeze swept my face. Tired, I will warm a cup of warm tea, taste slowly, and leave fragrance on my lips and cheeks. The words on the paper are gradually like flowers, slowly blooming with a long ink fragrance. The prelude of spring is also swaying willow branches in the noisy Huansha River day and night, and gradually overflows.
Somehow, in such a day-to-day time, I suddenly felt a different kind of enrichment and comfort. I suddenly realized that the most mundane life should be like this. According to the simple heart of the season, it contains a celadon-like smile, a graceful waist and a graceful mind. Some people may think this kind of life is boring and lonely, but I think this kind of life is very moist and beautiful. In this world, the temptation to disturb you and me is nothing more than glory and fame. You love your prosperity and I keep my happiness. It's good to be noisy and not interfere with each other.
A person's life, like a sapphire on the top of Kunlun Mountain, needs thousands of years of glacier infiltration to be peaceful and happy. Personally, only when I am immersed in the lingering of thousands of books, my worried, slightly tired and desolate heart in the noise of the world will gradually calm down and become calm. In the embrace of thousands of hectares of yellow sand, the crescent spring will be quiet and gloomy.
I have imagined countless times that when I am old, I will choose an elegant valley in the depths of the mountains stretching thousands of miles in my hometown and build a simple straw house. Outside the thatched cottage, it is best to surround it with pine paths. Qiu Feng is red. Walking out of the courtyard with crutches, you can enjoy a bay of mountains and lakes. In the thatched cottage, pearls and jewels are not needed. Just outside the windowsill, several bamboo poles and pots of bluegrass were planted. Sometimes the grass color enters the curtain and the moss marks the upper level, which is a place of elegance and luxury.
In the future, when the weather is sunny and calm, you can make an appointment with three or five friends, prepare half a cup of fragrant tea, taste a pot of sadness and joy, sit with the spring breeze, talk with the years, and get drunk without hesitation, so as to break your sorrow and let the long-lost Qing Ning, like a bodhi leaf, fall on the lotus stand in Ran Ran. In this way, there is nothing to ask for in this life.
At the end of 20 14, my first collection of essays was published as scheduled. A literary friend asked me why I chose "The Wind is Clear and Clouds are Light" as the title. I answered him, the flowers are silent, the moon shines for a thousand years without complaint, and the wind blows through Qian Shan without trace. I only hope that this text, which is saturated with my sincere heart, can be quietly placed in a corner of the bookshelf, and then, on a windy night, it is accidentally discovered, carefully dusted off and read at night. Occasionally, it is enough that some chapters and words can arouse a slight sigh in a calm heart lake like the curtain of the early spring breeze.
I am such a simple wish, and I look forward to such an unexpected encounter. For an "older youth" who has been struggling at the end of his youth, I should try to have such an indifferent realm anyway.
After writing this essay, it was an evening in early May and summer. Thunder rumbled outside the window, rain dripped and the mobile phone rang. It was the deep and kind voice of my father living in a remote mountain village: "Dong, does it rain heavily in your city?" There is hail on the mountain here. Did Yan come back from a business trip in Yunnan? "A trace of warmth and bitterness swept over my heart. I don't know when my father, who has always been clean and tidy, began to speak.
It's getting dark, and a gust of wind from south to south next door rushed into my studio: "Dad, we're going to eat, or mom will scold us later!" " "I put down my father's phone and looked at my mobile phone, only to find that no one answered the phone for half an hour. Looking at shoulder-high South-South, I suddenly felt a little wet in my eyes.
There is a quiet and ethereal song floating in the Baidu music box in the computer-
In a small town,
A few years later,
Surging clearly,
Washed memories.
I remember you,
Living proudly,
……