Snow dates and calligraphy
Lu Fangxiang. The big pot of charcoal, the fiery red spring couplets, the fat snow dates, the thick ink fragrance, outside the window, the snow is covered with snow, and it is covered in silver. On the afternoon of the Chinese New Year's Eve in 1981, my father, who had built six bungalows in the village, specially invited the village literati Moke to write Spring Festival couplets for my family in order to celebrate the housewarming.
My father instructed me to pull the paper and pour ink. These are the literati and pen sticks in the village, who usually love to fill in the words and ink after farming, and they will inevitably appear in the red and white ceremonies in the village. After arriving at my house, the four of them began to recite ancient poems, one for you and one for me, and also took out their own poems and couplets to display, as if it had become a poetry competition. Taking advantage of the momentum of the poem, rubbing his hands and began to write Spring Festival couplets. After a while, the bedside and the floor were full of Spring Festival couplets.
I was 11 years old and didn't know ancient poetry, but from their recitation, I only knew that every two or three words I stopped and changed my tone. That year, my elementary school teacher taught me calligraphy, and I saw calligraphers writing Spring Festival couplets, and the brushes were fast and slow, like ancient poems they were reciting.
As a token of appreciation, the father gave each of them a bag of dates as a moisturizer. While eating snow dates around the fireplace, they continued to race poems. Outside the window, goose feathers and snow were falling, and my saliva was already hanging on my lips. I wanted to eat snow dates so much that I secretly swore in my heart: I also want to write Spring Festival couplets, and I also want others to give me snow dates to eat. Snow dates are white, sweet, and festive, in that era of scarcity of materials, only on the first day of the New Year to the elderly, they will give one to each of the younger generations. I have many brothers and sisters, and I eat all the food.
Since then, I have worked harder to practice calligraphy, and I have no calligraphy to write on the ground with water according to the Spring Festival couplets on the wall. My father writes with a brush, and usually likes to keep accounts at home, seeing that I love calligraphy, he taught me the penmanship of "pause" and "mention" in the pen.
The second brother is also a calligraphy lover, and when he usually has nothing to do, he scribbles on the waste books and waste paper, but his father never asks him to write Spring Festival couplets, and always asks the calligrapher in the village to write, which is glorious and good-looking. It wasn't until the Spring Festival one year that my father finally pasted the Spring Festival couplets I wrote on his door, and gave a few pairs to his neighbors by the way. I saw that the neighbor didn't have the dates in his hand, and I was very disappointed. On the first day of the first lunar month, I went out to pay New Year's greetings, and I happened to see the Spring Festival couplets on the door of the neighbor's house, and I finally understood why he didn't give me snow dates to eat.
Many years later, I went to Beijing and Xi'an to learn calligraphy, and I really embarked on the right path of calligraphy, and only then did I understand that the rhythm of calligraphy is the beating of the brush up and down, and the pause of reciting ancient poems is the same as the beating of the brush writing, which is also a change in rhythm. When the rhythm and intensity of words change, poetry and calligraphy have a rhythm of life. Over the years, I have maintained my love for ancient poetry and calligraphy, and in this love, I gradually understood why my father wanted me to help the villagers to pour paper and ink, and why he took the initiative to give away the Spring Festival couplets I wrote. Nowadays, I don't remember how many couplets I wrote on a voluntary basis, or how many calligraphy students I taught, but I always remember emphasizing the brushwork, rhythm and strength of calligraphy with them. As soon as the New Year came to pass, I encouraged them to write Spring Festival couplets for relatives and friends, or took them into the community to write Spring Festival couplets, and the encouragement and encouragement to the children came from my father's recognition of me. Nowadays, my lover always buys back huge snow dates at the New Year's Festival before the Spring Festival, and treats me after I finish writing the Spring Festival couplets.
Snow dates and calligraphy, one white and one black, one static and one moving, promote my growth and make me confident.
The author is the chairman of the Xianning Calligraphy Association of Hubei Province).
Lu Fangxiang's handwriting.