Love the purple color of sim flowers

08:35, 24/05/2023

Going back to my hometown on the weekend, visiting a friend, I heard my friend excitedly boasting that he had just dug up an old sim tree from a distant mountain and planted it in a vase, and today the flowers have bloomed. Suddenly seeing the purple flowers of the past, I couldn't help but be moved, feeling my soul drifting back to a distant past.

The distant past appears when I was a child in a poor village, going to school, herding buffaloes and cutting grass. At that time, life in every village was still poor, urban civilization had not yet reached the alleys. Children grew up innocently and naturally, not yet fascinated by digital devices, regardless of rich or poor or a few years apart. At that time, every family had a few buffaloes and cows as their main asset. The task of herding buffaloes was usually reserved for the children in the family. At that time, the fields were fertile, stretching as far as the eye could see, and the mountains and forests were green with their primeval colors.

Illustration: Tra My

In those days, the children herded buffaloes in large numbers, so they divided into groups and clubs. The children in Dinh hamlet had many big buffaloes, so they often went to the distant Bung fields to graze them, while the people were constantly in the field parties. The children in Bac hamlet had mainly cows, so they often went to Mui Thuyen cave to graze them, while the people went to pick sim trees or splash around at Bau Ganh dam. I was in the middle hamlet, and the youngest, so occasionally my older siblings let me go out for a few days, sometimes with this group, sometimes with that group. Perhaps because of that, all the happy and sad games of my childhood were experienced, always fresh as if it had happened yesterday in my loving memories.

During those exciting days of shepherding, what I loved most were the cold winter afternoons, herding the buffaloes to the fields, each of us holding a milk tube containing hot coals or a bundle of straw to keep the fire going. According to the assignment, some tended the buffaloes, some fished, some fished out crabs from the caves, some went to steal sweet potatoes. When the fire was lit, the fragrant smell of the countryside filled the fields along with the smoke. The whole group enjoyed the feast, exclaiming in the cold of each gust of north wind. Thinking back, even though we have enjoyed many delicacies, eaten all kinds of Asian and European dishes, we still cannot have the same delicious feeling as the feasts of our childhood.

On summer afternoons, the whole group would herd the buffaloes up to the cave to release them. After jumping into the dam to cool off the summer heat, the whole group would split up to pick ripe sim fruits hidden under the bushes. Mui Thuyen Cave was still pristine at that time. There were a few barren eucalyptus trees, bom trees, and oil trees planted during the cooperative period, and the rest were a vast array of wild plants: gardenia flowers, mua flowers, sim flowers, peony flowers, mimosa flowers, co may flowers, sour tamarind flowers, and even white reed bushes at the end of the year... The wild sim fruits of my hometown were often called "buffalo sim" because when ripe, they were plump, round, and purple-pink. Sim had many uses for human health such as enriching blood, treating digestive diseases, treating dizziness, tinnitus, insomnia... We only learned about this when we grew up, but at that time, the children in the countryside were attracted by the sweet taste of sim. There were times when we were happy to discover a bush of blackberries that no one had visited yet. Some bushes were big enough to have dozens, even hundreds of fruits. We picked pockets full of clothes, hats, and gathered in the shade, telling jokes and enjoying the flavors of the mountains and forests…

While clinking glasses with a friend, we chat about memories that have not been long ago but have become hazy in our memories. The flowers still bloom purple and silently, but now we see that they are no longer attractive. Is it because it is a wild plant that is not used to human care and pruning? Is it because it is alone in an unfamiliar environment that it does not give its all to show off its green color? Is it because it only belongs to the climate and soil of the vast green mountains and forests of the past?

Childhood is so close yet so far away. The fragile purple petals make us feel like we have found and lost something precious. Those innocent and peaceful days, without worries or sadness, have become the past. With sadness and regret, we suddenly feel weak when we think of the purple color of the Sim flower…

Dinh Ha

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