Look back and forth at the threshold

Advice from an adult on the doorstep. Illustration

Starting from the instructions

The doorstep seems to be the place that witnesses the most advice. Even when a person is an adult, steps into a house, or goes far away, happiness is still hearing advice.

When the sound of Tet holiday subsides, it is also the time for children far away from home to face themselves once again. The backpack is heavy with advice and the steps at the doorstep are still a bit hesitant.

In my hometown, every family has the habit of sitting on the doorstep in the late afternoon. I don’t know when this “custom” started, but the stories told on the doorstep, the images of warmth and comfort forever resonate in the minds of our young generation. It’s as if the doorstep is an invisible character but has the power to listen, store and sympathize with everything.

I keep wondering if it is the threshold of each house with the advice of parents about the will to overcome difficulties that has been deposited over the years, to pass on value to future generations?

The first house I lived in had a threshold that extended into a double-paneled wooden door. The door was made of the usual mahogany wood, with a latch at both ends and a semicircular handle in the middle. Every morning or evening, when I heard my parents latch the door at both ends, I knew the day had ended or begun.

From the sound of the door closing, I knew the limits of a young girl. The threshold witnessed the first stages of my growth. The child at that time gradually formed the thought that “as long as the door is open, I am still tolerated”.

Waiting for Mom to Come Home. Illustration

And tolerance...

Then we grew up, from that old doorstep we spread out in many directions. Some went to the city to follow their families to make a living , some wandered with their own destinies.

As for me, I left home to live in a rented house when I was only 15 years old. Every time I miss home, I dream of walking my bike home to the alley, my mother coming out the door to greet me, her tolerant and gentle smile soothing the early turmoil of life.

I met my old friends from the same doorway. Sitting in the house on New Year's Day, I saw a familiar figure, hurried to the door and held hands.

After many years abroad, you have now settled down in America with a large nail salon with dozens of workers. But somewhere the Quang Nam edge is still intact. “My child said he likes houses in Vietnam more than houses in America because each house has a different color and shape. Houses in America are all the same,” you said.

You said you live in America but there is still a worshiping table during the holidays. The only difference is that the threshold in America is very small, so Vietnamese people place the worshiping table inside the house. The space of connection therefore cannot “touch” the circle of heaven and earth. Turning towards the fatherland, we can only turn from the heart.

The spring days are long gone, the threshold is silent again listening to the footsteps of people leaving. But in recent years, those footsteps have gradually slowed down, opportunities have been divided equally among all regions of the country.

Quang people used to be the locality with the largest number of people leaving their homeland, but now it is also the place with the most vibrant movement of starting a business. I keep imagining that perhaps the threshold of each house with the advice of parents about the will to overcome difficulties has been sedimented over the years, to pass on the value to the next generations?

That is why in the shadow of the startup stories, there are successes and failures but the same is the spirit of dedication to the homeland. And the energy inside each person certainly cannot lack the image of the homeland.

In life, we cannot choose where we were born. So on our own journey, every time we need to look at ourselves, we still see the threshold as a magic mirror and the door of the house, though silent, is ready to tolerate all...

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