Since my wife moved to a new flat, a junior high school on the outskirts of the city, the distance between us has widened.
I am in the city, seven or eight kilometers away from her, there are many people and cars on the road, there are many traffic lights, the road conditions are complicated, and it takes about 20 minutes to drive an electric car. We are both homeroom teachers, and we go out early and return late to see the students every day, and we rarely see each other except on weekends. Occasionally, when there is no evening self-study, I will go to her place, have a meal, and go out to the supermarket. Occasionally, she wanted to go back to the city, but I didn't let her come, because I didn't want her to run around, and I didn't believe in her driving skills, so I usually ran back and forth.
When I was in high school, the school required the class teacher to be in place before 6:50 every morning, and if there was a flag raising, morning meeting, exercise, or my turn to be on duty, I had to come earlier. In her time, in the morning, I usually woke up at 6 20, spent 10 minutes washing, went out on time at 6 30, arrived at 6 50, and was in a hurry like a war. Although I always wake up and sleep, I rotate every day, and I come home late and rest late, and if I hadn't set the alarm the night before, it would have been difficult to wake up on time the next morning.
As I went more and more, I gradually realized that it was not the alarm clock that woke me up more every day, but the "rumbling" sound of the car earlier than the alarm clock. At five or six o'clock in the morning, the thunderous sound of the car will sound on time, it should be that kind of heavy truck, the huge size of the earth is trembling, I don't know whether to start or pass. My sleep was already lacking, my dreams were disturbed, and my sleep interruption was difficult to continue, and I was really full of complaints and indignation. Later, I slowly thought that in fact, there are such people living in every car, they get up early and are greedy for darkness, work hard, and they work hard for their livelihood and family. How can I blame such people?Some of my students' parents are truck drivers, and they come and go in the wind and rain all day long, sometimes in Guangxi and sometimes in Yunnan-Guichuan, and rarely when they are stable. So I was relieved and understood them a little more.
It was early winter, and the light snow had just passed, and the temperature dropped sharply, and the cold wind was blowing. Struggling to get up, brush your teeth and wash your face, put on your shoes and clothes, and get ready to go out. The sky was cloudy, and when I opened the door, the cold wind pierced my face, and the cold suddenly filled my body, and I couldn't help but sneeze a few times, and the chain of the cotton coat was pulled even higher. Outside the alley, the lights were dim, the night was ethereal, and the tall buildings in front of me seemed to be draped in a layer of jet-black tulle, standing and looking at me. The shadows of the trees beside the road are swaying, and countless dead branches and leaves have fallen, and there are no human figures inside and outside the wall, and the earth is still sleeping.
Exit and turn right is the starting point of a bus. Probably because the place is remote and there are few people, there is only one car on this line. There were no passengers yet, the bus was parked, the body was started, the engine was rattling, and the lights were shining ahead. The driver got off the bus, rubbed his hands, habitually took out a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket, lit it, and smoked it in the bleak cold wind. At a little in front of the bus, there was an uncle driving a tricycle who sold bananas here last night for two yuan a catty. I picked a handful and weighed him, and the scale showed 24 pounds, 4$8. He said, 2 catties, give 4 yuan. I was taken aback, because I had never encountered anything like this. "Uncle, your number is not appropriate, you have smeared yourself too much. And now the online payment is also convenient, you can give as much as you want, and you can't take advantage of it. "The boy is fine, so what's there?How many forty or fifty yuan a day is nothing. Besides, everything is grown by us, it doesn't matter if there is more or less, there are in the ground. Even so, I was embarrassed, so I saw that he still had a lot of bananas in his car, so I took another handful and told him to put the two on the scale. Uncle said, 103 yuan, give 10 yuan. I responded to him with a smile, okay, 10 yuan, thank you Uncle, I wish you a good sale!
The trees on both sides kept falling backwards, and I entered from one intersection to another, and there was a lot of noise, and suddenly there was a commotion in front of me. When the car approached, it turned out that the roadside was already full of things, selling goods and buying goods, people coming and going, this is the suburban polder market at 6 o'clock. What's there?Fish, pork, beef, live chickens, live ducks, eggs, duck eggs, peanuts, chestnuts, sweet potatoes, taro, citrus, sugarcane, passion fruit, ......The variety is overwhelming. Especially the pork sold, from a distance, it is clearly organized, bright red and tender, and at a glance, you can tell that it was slaughtered in the middle of the night, and it is fresh!Let people who don't like to cook have the urge to cook. Perhaps it was a cold day, and some stall owners also lit a fire on the side, and the swaying light of the fire temporarily blocked the chill in a corner, giving people a faint warmth before dawn. In the whole market, there are the most people selling vegetables, and most of them are elderly grandmothers, who only spread a layer of plastic film on the ground, or put a snakeskin bag on the vegetables to sell. These stalls are next to each other, and the grandmothers are neatly waiting on the side of the road, waiting for people to come to inquire. The vegetables they sell are green in color, and the leaves are still carrying the morning dew, as if to tell us that the vegetables have just been picked from the ground, and they are incomparably fresh and inviting.
Across the road from the bazaar are a variety of food stalls selling barbecue fried skewers, seafood oysters, fried noodles and so on. The lights are dim, the diners have long since dispersed, and the stall owners are busy cleaning up, presumably they must have stayed up all night last night. There is a stall that I often go to - "Miao Kee Oysters", roasted oysters also double as others, and the stall owners are two very optimistic and bold sisters. Every time I visit, I like to chat with them, and they often tell me about their work, and they usually go out of the stall at ** o'clock every night, usually until about one or two o'clock in the middle of the night, and occasionally they will stay up all night to see if there are many customers. When I came out, I saw them wiping the tables and chairs and turning the stove upside down, so I thought that last night's business must have been very good, right?But the taste of staying up late is not pleasant, and staying up in winter is even more difficult, the temperature is low, the fog is heavy, and people are sleepy and cold. When I went out this morning, a thick layer of dew had accumulated on the seat cushion of the train, and I almost sat on my butt, and you can see how cold it is in the middle of the night. But fortunately, their stove was bright and warm, and the small light of the fire became a common comfort for them and their guests in the cold night.
When I reached the Zhuzhou Bridge, I turned to a narrow place, and the way was blocked by a convoy of sanitation workers in front. At the back of each of their cars, a small flashing light is installed to alert the people behind them. Although it was not as dark as when I first came out, it was still difficult to see the road, so I followed them quietly and patiently followed the convoy. Actually, this is not the first time I have met these sanitation workers, we have been meeting each other, but we don't know each other. Every time I come out of my wife, I run into them, with few exceptions. In the morning, they were still parked on the side of the road, ready to go, and in the evening, they had already started their work, sweeping up piles and piles of leaves. I have paid attention to every face of them, every action of serious work, and the simplicity and kindness, diligence and tenacity hidden under the orange overalls, which often move me inexplicably.
The years are constant, and maybe that's how life is. Working hard in the morning and evening, leaving early and returning late, this is the norm since I graduated and joined the work. I used to complain from time to time that I was busy, directionless, full of anxiety about the future, and didn't know where to go. But it wasn't until I saw their lives, late-night food stall owners, early morning bus drivers, vegetable sellers and sanitation workers ......They are the same and different.
Gradually, I felt as if I had a new understanding of life. In fact, in the time of our lives, it is not always lively, and the dull and busy are the majority. We are living hard, pursuing, paying, feeling with our hearts, and creating our own value and happiness in every seemingly ordinary and repetitive moment.
*: China Youth Daily client.