An unforgettable time

Illustration: LE NGOC DUY

I was born and raised in a family that barely made ends meet, not struggling to make ends meet but not often well off. We grew up and went to school with a peaceful childhood, without worries. Many times we had to follow the buffalo and cows to the fields, swim in the river, and play “o an quan”, “play hide and seek” and many other games, sometimes in the fields, sometimes by the haystack or in a neighbor’s garden.

Sometimes I dive into the river to catch mussels, clams, fish, shrimp and then grill them to eat. I don't know if the food is clean or not, but it tastes very delicious when I'm hungry and have no snacks.

In April and May, when the harvest season is over, there are still piles of straw in the fields. People can’t bring them all home, so they burn the straw to roast beans, corn, and sweet potatoes in the blue smoke of the afternoon. At that time, my hometown seemed to be covered in mist, peaceful and idyllic. I can’t forget the afternoons sitting leaning against the buffalo, studying and humming, watching the afternoon sunlight gradually fall to the west, and in the distance, someone lit a fire on the village fields. And the nights by the river in the moonlight, there was a small boat like a leaf drifting along the undulating water.

As the days passed, the boys and girls in the neighborhood and village who were still naked in the past have now grown up and gone to work far away. Some of them tearfully said goodbye to their parents and younger siblings to get married and never returned for many years.

Then came the war with the sound of bombs falling, bullets exploding, tearing the sky and earth apart, there were years when we had to move to live with many other families, that was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The house in the countryside burned down, leaving no property. When we arrived at the new place, my family, like many other families, were given corrugated iron to build new houses. The corrugated iron houses had only a few small rooms, low roofs, and were swelteringly hot in the summer. But, every day from those houses, I could still hear the sound of the guitar and the singing of my newly grown neighbor, with long hair and jet-black eyes. Many times, it was the clear, smooth singing of love songs from the radio or cassette player that the villagers had saved up to buy to listen to music and news.

When I was around 14 years old, I already knew how to sing a song with the lyrics “It’s been five years since I’ve seen you since you got married”, and “Who do you miss when you come back to the dark alley/How many leaves fall/Who do you miss when you smile without saying anything/Hesitantly, the leaves kiss your shoulder”. Sometimes when we were excited, we would sing some neo-classical verses: “Let me relive the honest Le-Tran era/She weaved silk, he studied and waited for the royal examinations... Let me relive the love of Luu Binh and Duong Le/I ask Chau Long how many seasons of silkworms did she spend feeding her husband?”. We just sang and hummed along to the melody without knowing the meaning of the song.

Growing up, I don't know why I liked to read the verses "There is wind coming from the dry leaf road/ I am here to take you back in time for the drifting afternoon". There are also very haunting and impressive verses by Dinh Hung in the poem "Canh chim di qua": "I return to the road up the mountain and know/ I pity the clouds that have flown since then and are still lonely/ The flowers still have half a soul/ The grass leaves lean their shoulders to search for illusions". When did I become infected with those verses?

Then the autumn leaves changed, the scorching heat was replaced by hurried afternoon rains. We ran in the rain, took a bath, washed away the dusty wind of the hot summer to feel fresher and more radiant in the autumn of changing new clothes - the school year of students.

And I don't know since when, I started writing a diary, recording my feelings, emotions before the season of changing leaves, before the sudden rains... I didn't expect that it was these moods, these fluttering emotions that urged me to register for the Literature department at a university not unfamiliar to my hometown Quang Tri . Then I went to teach in a far away province, a few years later I was able to return to work as a journalist in my hometown. Wandering and writing, through many countrysides, meeting brothers, sisters, the elderly, lonely in the midst of life's ups and downs with many mixed emotions, sometimes happy and sad, sometimes encountering injustices but not knowing what to do, sometimes wanting to peel away the truth, doing a good deed but why is it so difficult?...

Although life is not always as expected, we still maintain a calm mind. Always be grateful for the luck and advantages that life has given us. I don't know if it's because I come from a farming family, but I always have the awareness to appreciate and be grateful to those who grow cassava, sweet potatoes, rice, and grains that feed me every day.

Many times when I have to live alone, I suddenly wake up at night to hear each drop of rain falling and feel sad when I see the leaves falling in the yard, old memories come back, I remember those childhood days with a heartache...

Phuoc An

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/mot-thoi-kho-quen-193970.htm