[Fireworks in the world].
A few students who like to write "Lunar Calendar" opened a restaurant in Yinchuan, Ningxia, and the corridor was decorated with the scenery of my hometown, which made me feel a lot of affection for the restaurant, and after a while, I wanted to find a reason to have a meal. They asked me how the food tasted. I said, it's good, but I always think that it would be better if the dishes were a little more "earthy". Actually, I want to say that it would be better if I could eat it as if I was a child. As I later learned, I was not the only one who made such a suggestion. In the city where the streets and alleys are full of restaurants, the reason why everyone chooses to dine here is to relive the "taste of the lunar calendar" and retain that wisp of nostalgia.
It is estimated that many people feel the same way, every time they go back to their hometown, the village will be much stranger, and when I was a child, "the courtyard of the **, the tree that digs the bird's eggs, the wheat field where the hopscotch, and the corner of the wall that beats the mud gradually disappears." One day, I sat at the top of the hill, looking at the new buildings below the mountain, and wondered, is there a model that is both modern and can leave nostalgiaCan the "middle way" spoken by the ancestors be reflected in the construction of beautiful countryside?
What touched me was that at this time, the county decided to protect some landmarks with cultural symbols, including the old castle where I was born and raised, and to set up my studio with a little repair. I told the comrades in charge of the restoration again and again that I must repair the old as the old and help me keep the door to my childhood.
Although the village has running water, the well behind the old fort must be protected. When my brother became an adult, he dug this well in the backyard of the fort, and not only ate it for his own family, but also for his neighbors. I still remember the scene when the well was drilled, and the villagers came to help, digging shovel by shovel, basket by basket, beating for more than ten days, and finally getting the water out. I remember my brother coming up from the well like a clay man;I remember lying at the mouth of the well, looking for myself in the rising waterI still remember the scene of my father and my brother making ...... wheels
I like to fetch water, hang the bucket on the iron clip at the end of the rope, lower it from the well, and then loosen the well rope on the reel to let the bucket fall. When the bucket touches the water, there is a "tom" sound, and immediately a sense of weight from the bottom of the well is transmitted through the well rope. Through that sense of weight, you will judge if the bucket is full of water, and if not, put it again, feel full, and hold your breath and shake it. When the well rope is wrapped around the wheel, and when it is shaken in a circle, a heavy sense of harvest will fill the whole body through the arms. The bucket rose more and more clearly, and when it reached the mouth of the well, I grabbed the wet bucket handle and lifted the bucket to the platform, and I seemed to see another me in my heart, bowing to the well, which was a kind of welcome, a kind of emotion, to the nectar from the depths of the earth.
Once you are accustomed to drinking the water in this well, you will feel that no matter how good the mineral water is, it is also separated. It's a taste of the depths of the earth – the well water that comes up in the winter is warm, the well water that comes up in the summer is cold, it smells a little dirty, it tastes a little deep, and more importantly, you feel that it is alive. Therefore, every Chinese New Year, when I write the couplet "The Green Dragon Stays Forever" on red paper, paste it into the well room, light three sticks of incense, kneel down and kowtow three heads, it seems that there is really an invisible dragon who takes the couplet, the blessing, and the curling cigarette from my hand.
In addition to protecting the well, I also restored my brother's childhood stove. Without the stove, the poetry brought to us by the smoke is impossible to find. I told my brother that now you are probably the only one in the village who can make an old stove, and the young people will not be able to. My brother understood what I meant, so he spread out the stove. In the city, every time I turn on the gas stove, I will see the scene of my childhood. In winter, when my mother cooks, I sit on a small wooden bench in front of the stove and help my mother light the fire, adding dry cow dung to the stove with my left hand, and pulling the bellows with my right hand. Looking at the dancing flames, you will feel that the Lord of the Stove on the twenty-third day of the lunar month behind the stove is real, "God says good things, and returns to the palace to bring auspiciousness". I asked my mother, what is "good thing" and what is "auspicious"?My mother said that "good things" are to be filial to my parents, respect my brothers, save food, think more about others, and help others. A life lesson that affected my life was completed in front of the stove.
After a while, the aroma of the meal spread, tickling in my nostrils, the aroma of potatoes, the aroma of steamed buns, the aroma of sweet potato chips, the aroma of beetroot ......Mother lifted the lid of the pot, and the mist from the big iron pot enveloped us at once.
The days are moving in front of this stove, from the beginning of spring, to the beginning of summer, to the beginning of autumn, and then to the beginning of winter, my mother is like a trick, in the big iron pot, we fry the beans of the Spring Dragon Festival, steam the flower buns of the Dragon Boat Festival, make moon cakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival, and cook dumplings for the winter solstice.
I also asked my brother to restore the stone mill of his childhood. Without the stone mill, the poetry of turning grain into flour would be gone. Finally, when the new wheat comes down, your heart trembles as you watch your mother pour the golden wheat from the bag on the millstone. My mother and I each pushed a grinding stick, held it in our arms, leaned forward, and circled around the grinding table. A millstone of new wheat flowed between two stone mills through the grinding eyes, and under the impetus of my mother and me, flour flowed out of the mill, with the smell of the sun and the earth, with the smell of spring breeze and summer rain, and with the smell of my parents' sweat. As we walked around the yard imagining the new wheat flour cakes, our saliva wet the grinding sticks. Pushing and grinding is not like burning a fire, it is endurance work, and my mother told me stories in order not to make me lonely. He said, "This wheat is the gods of heaven who have come down to earth to feed men." I said, then if we eat it, we will eat the immortalsMother said, yes, so we can't waste food. I said, then we are putting the gods in the grinding mouth now?Mother said, yes, it endures the pain, feeds us, we work a little hard, what's it. When the new wheat came down, my mother would put the first pot of cakes in a bamboo basket and take us to my grandfather's house with the bamboo basket to let my grandfather and grandma taste the new ones before letting us eat them. Grandma broke a piece and threw it in all directions, saying that she was grateful to the land lord, and then put a piece in her mouth and said, "It's so fragrant." Then, divide the one in your hand into two, one for my mother and one for me.
I also asked my brother to restore the charcoal stove that he used to use in the house. In my memory, first it was a small red clay stove, then a pig iron stove, and then an ovenThe fuel was first charcoal, and later coal. My parents first used clay pots to make tea, and later switched to iron cans. But the scene of the smoke and fire when the mother lit the fire has not changed. During the slack time, some villagers came to gather around the stove and drank a few cups. In the evening, everyone sat around the fire, smoking dry tobacco, drinking tea, and gossiping, and I fell asleep in their parents' homes. At that time, I just felt that the stove in front of me was no longer a stove, but a magic that allowed people to gather around and make love. What a nostalgic feeling.
There were sections of chimneys on the charcoal stove that were taken out of the house, and I liked to stand in the yard and watch the smoke coming out of the chimney with my arms and legs stretched out and dancing in the wind. Especially when it snows, the smoke, like a scarf, is put on the yard. Later, I liked to go up to the hill alone on a winter morning and watch the smoke and smoke of the cooking and stove of the houses, rendering the whole village like a dream. Often, tears welled up in the corners of my eyes. It's cold, but I don't want to go home, I can't see enough.
I also asked my brother to keep the earthen kang in the upper room and the flower quilt we covered on the kang. There are also window patterns, door gods, and New Year paintings, and when I retire, I will cut and paste again in the thirtieth year of the Chinese New Year's Eve. And that square wooden lantern, how I wanted to see the snow lantern again.
I told my brother that he was asked to do this to "remember the nostalgia", and he didn't understand it, but when I said that with this stone mill, the children could push it with their own hands and know how wheat turned into flourWith this stove, children can make a fire with their own hands and know how raw rice is turned into riceWith this well, children can make buckets of water with their own hands and feel the beauty of water drawn from the depths of the earth. In this way, the children's sense of gratitude is cultivated - he immediately understands.
Author: Guo Wenbin, Chairman of Ningxia Federation of Literary and Art Circles and Chairman of Writers Association).