Smoke curled up.
Where there is cooking smoke, there are villages; Where there is smoke, there is life; Where there is cooking smoke, there are fireworks in the world.
Born in the mountains since childhood, there is no shortage of firewood or coal. Every family burns a plate of hot kang, which is used for both cooking and heating, and is used for both purposes.
On the hillside around the village, on the side of the ditch, you can chop firewood everywhere. In the valley below the village, the river washes out outcropping coal, and every household has a coal kiln where they dig coal for heating.
Zhuanghu people, when the farm is busy, plough and hoe the moon. When the farm is not working, cut charcoal and dig coal. The coal dug up is carried back to the village, which is not only for heating and cooking for home, but also for selling the surplus in exchange for some change to supplement life.
Dozens of households in the village, with a radius of less than one square kilometer, are concentrated in a mountain col. Three meals a day, cooking smoke is made in the chimney of every house. When it's time to cook, the whole village is filled with the smell of burning charcoal. There is also the refreshing aroma of stir-fried vegetables and steamed noodles in sesame oil.
When the sufferers from the coal kiln returned to the village from outside the village in the evening, they all knew their chimneys, and they all craned their necks to see whether the chimneys were white or black. If there is black smoke, it is the housewife who has just lit a fire; If there is white smoke, it means that the meal is ready, and the pace of going home is quickened.
When I was a child, I was in high school in Yangfangkou Town, and every Sunday when I walked back to the village, it was dusk. I climbed up to the grave and stood at the head of the village, and at first glance I saw the curling smoke on the roof of my house, and I knew that my mother had steamed the dumplings and was waiting for me to return home.
Smoke has been rising from the rooftops of every house every day for hundreds of years. It is a unique scenery in the mountain village, and it is also the hope of the villagers to live all year round.
Chimneys grow on the roof, and cooking smoke envelops the courtyard. Smoke curls in, infinite vitality. A family watched over a plate of fire; A fire burns with an expectation. Generation after generation of people have thrived under the warmth of cooking smoke.
Cooking smoke is life, and it is the life of the countryman. To watch the smoke is to watch for happiness. With cooking smoke, there is tranquility and food and clothing.
The smoke of cooking in the countryside nourished my childhood, haunted my life, supported me to grow up, and sent me out of the mountain country.
I have been away from my hometown for many years, and I often feel homesick in my dreams, and the smell of cooking smoke wafts into my dreamland, and the warm and peaceful wisps of cooking smoke are touching ** at the head of the village and greeting me. The fragrance and simple feelings make me have a long-lost family affection.
Today, the hometown is digging coal in the open air, and the immigrants have relocated, and the cooking smoke and water source have been cut off. Hometown is not home. The smoke of my hometown is drifting away from me.
It's just that the smoke is long gone, and the nostalgia lingers.
February 4, 2024.
Xiang Dong got up in the morning and wrote down the nostalgia in his dreams.