Rejoice in hope

In the boundless Hulunbuir snow field in winter, there are always more animals than people.

Sometimes it was a herd of horses bent over the grass, trying to find dried stalks through the deep snow. Their figure, from the far road to see the past, like the small ants between heaven and earth, black, silent, and with a kind of destiny like not forced and calm. Sometimes it is a herd of cows, following their children who are always rubbing up against them to suckle, walking slowly through the snow, occasionally turning their heads to glance at strange vehicles passing by on the road. But most of the time, they are self, do not know what they are thinking, but understand their thoughts, always only in this piece of grassland, and further life, has nothing to do with life.

Large dogs can also be seen in the sprawling courtyards of settled herders scattered in small patches. They have strong bodies, sharp teeth, alert and loyal eyes, and will tell the host drinking in the room to welcome guests from afar before you come near, with a deep, cold voice that penetrates the whole snow field. Sometimes they run out of the yard and stand on the road where they can see people coming, like a sad poet who stands at the window where they can see the scenery, where there is a world outside the heart that no one can understand except themselves. In this winter sparsely populated and no tourists on the snow field, are these hairy big dogs, with stubborn lonely and proud figure, dotted with the silver frozen world. Whether they howled like wolves or remained stubbornly silent, their very existence was a wild, ancient symbol of this silent snow field.

You can also see the petrified foxes, who gracefully cross the snow-covered railway tracks, like Pu Songling's female foxes, deftly crossing the broken walls to find the late night scholars. They are a heart on the silver snow field, burning red, life in the running, such as the claw marks on the ground, you can see the clear lines. If no one is disturbed, this snow field is their quiet home, no matter how the world changes, they are still the most beautiful and most foolish red fox in the world.

Herders from Gachari, far from the town, would ride camels to Sumu to buy New Year goods on snowy days when cars could not run. When the camels were carrying heavy loads and moving slowly through the snow, the time always felt long and far away, and the time on the clock was just a mechanical number, monotonous and boring, only the distant sound of the camel bell, the snow creaking under the camel's feet, and the singing of the shepherd, little by little, bumping against the bright moon.

The sparrow still flies out of the nest in the weather of more than 30 degrees below zero to find food in the quiet courtyard of the herdsmen. In the winter snow, even the huge cow dung is covered, not to mention the wheat and corn that have never grown; But the sparrows can find the seeds that fall in the summer when the herders return from weeding, or the crumbs that are shaken off when the milk is dried. There are also the leftovers of the cows and sheep, which they do not pick, but jump in and enjoy themselves. It is rare to see herdsmen to drive them, so they are not afraid of people, stepping on the snow flowers, and like the men on the kang, after drinking and eating, they fly out of the courtyard one after another and return to the high bird's nest.

But the animals most able to stand out in the winter snow fields are the cows, who are intimately involved in the life of the herders. They come out of their homes during the day and dip into the warm water of the river on a nearby sunny bank, through thick holes in the ice smashed by the herders. Sometimes they go up the town road, like children in the country who want to run away from home but are hesitant. The path is always full of cow dung, frozen in the cold, like a hard stone, often old women, carrying baskets, bent over to pick up these cow dung that does not belong to any family, take home to warm and burn kang. The cows ignored the manure piled up by the herdsmen, wagged their tails, and walked between the snow field and the town as usual, until the night when the udders were full of milk, they slowly walked back to the courtyard, waiting for the women to light up and help them lose the burden of the body.

When a person walks on the vast snow field, seeing such silent and free life, the loneliness in the heart will often disappear instantly, as if the soul has the heaven and earth to accommodate and include, it can be as independent and unrestrained as these lives, full and abundant, even if the wind and snow, do not have to be afraid.

All life, between heaven and earth, is but a drop in the ocean, and man will not be noble or superior than the proud life in the cold on the snow field.

To be happy in hope, the philosopher who said this sentence, when he has a thorough understanding of life, knows that in the long distance, we are living more in the seemingly endless hope, so we should maintain joy, and use calm and peaceful heart to deal with the lonely long wait. Just like, before love does not come, we shrink in the shell of youth, with a face of lonely acne, lonely road.

Many hopes, in the end, will be disappointed. But even if it is predicted, it is still with light joy, and it is spent tirelessly year after year. Like cicadas chirping to a short summer day. Or the ephemera that live and die on the water. When I was young, I often admired those young women, even if they were not beautiful, but they could be wild and enchanting, watching open-air movies, they could always catch a glimpse of their crackling burning desire and passion in the dark. Next to the haystacks, deep in the forest, under the grape trellings, and among the reeds, are the most hidden and gorgeous places of their lives. I take a kind of sadness that can not be removed, see them in the outsiders' comments, more and more rich and full, and I, such a long expectation, when can it end?

The time before 20 years old can shy bloom for a love is pale green, like the sky before dawn. Do not think about whether it will be rainy, wait for a day of spring, just look up at the window, and silently pray in the heart, hope that there will be a boy, passing my window, even if he does not look at me, or even like a gust of wind, swift past. However, the wind to a wisp of indifferent flowers, but also can warm humble thin me. The boy I secretly love, never said a word to me, but in my heart, there is the clearest shadow; Like a cloud, reflected in the clear stream, I carefully row the boat, afraid of rippling microwave, will break his appearance in my heart. On the negative of love, only he is a person, but when I look up in the dark night, under the yellow light, I can see my green face, mixed with his. Like, two animals snuggling up to each other for warmth on a winter's day.

Of course I know it's all in my head. Imagine meeting him again and again, walking, smiling at each other. Even in a falling leaf, there is a soft story. Such beautiful and sentimental imagination is just a distant and distant dream, which has already predicted that it will wake up no longer, and still refuses to stop missing and obsessively haunting him.

A few years later, they went their separate ways, and there was no contact. The boy who only spent a time with me in a dream, like the morning mist, dissipated in a corner where I do not know before the sun broke the clouds. So long hope, at the end of the college entrance examination of the moment, it became a disappointment, once had all kinds of joy that only I can know, recorded in the diary, also fell full of sad dust.

I once felt wasted and meaningless for the secret love that had consumed my whole youth. It seems that the spring is long, there should be a brighter past and memories. If you did not have the pride in the love, have hope, like all precocious and stable children, to seek the height and go, then perhaps also will not miss school, become an ordinary woman, let the height of the love, like a big bird, whizz fly out of my sight, and never return.

Is to one day, inadvertently saw this sentence, in the hope of joy, only to fully understand, every journey of time, whether it is ultimately dim, or bright, the most important thing is originally through the time, to maintain joy, get rid of sadness. Most of the hope in life, but return to dust, become disappointed, but if it is wasted, do not hold joy, let go, then to the end of the road, look back, but a desert.

And joy in hope, let this lonely life, so more small pure happiness, just like the flowers in the tea, the swirling leaves in the stream, the birds across the air, such silence and joy, in any journey of walking, should be worthy of nostalgia.

When I was very young, I was left at home by my parents who went out to work, and I often felt fear, like ghosts floating around in the shadows of cupboards, in the earthy branches of flowerpots, among the webs crisscrossed under the old-fashioned eight-fairy table, or under the dark bed stuffed with cabbage and potatoes. When I feel afraid, the most common thing I do is to hide in the cupboard at home where I keep my clothes and quilts. There is my warmest harbor, I lie on the layers of quilts, chewing sweet ginger, while listening to the outside of the SLATE street, a multitude of trivial voices. I can clearly distinguish which is the footsteps of parents, which is the next door aunt Tan hum ditty. These voices, far and near, were like the ripples of the evening sun, upon which I fell asleep. Occasionally, strange people would come to the door and ask if anyone was home. I wake up in a cold sweat every time. But he did not dare to move, but pressed the cupboard tighter and tighter, and covered his head with his mother's clothes, and listened with bated breath to the noise outside the door, until the rapid knock stopped, and the yard fell into the eternal silence once more. And I, in the faint fragrance of the logs, gradually returned to the dreariness before the fright, and fell into a deep sleep.

Sometimes my parents came back, couldn't find me everywhere, and I was anxious, but I was hiding in the cabinet, secretly covering my mouth and laughing, until my mother was about to cry, I quietly opened the cabinet door, tiptoed around my mother from behind, and scared her into Shouting. This secret, my mother did not know, I never told her, I in the cupboard, how to indulge my imagination, all the read, heard the story, mixed together to create a spirit as big as the sky can enter the sky. More importantly, this spirit, can give me comfort, accompany me to dream, those long time alone, shorten, fade, until like the tears on my cheek, no trace.

Yes, I so stubbornly like the secret time in the cupboard, feeling that the time here, like a long wing, flying will carry me through the lonely and helpless days. I no longer had to be afraid of unexpected visitors, the eaves of cats, the lonely neighing of the wind over the treetops, the rats that ran through the hall as the sky grew dark. Small cabinets, enough to keep all this out of the door. I can only know from the cracks in the cupboard that the light outside has faded, the voices are no longer noisy, and the mother is coming back soon.

All my childhood memories seem to be intertwined with this cupboard full of the sweet smell of camphor. I remember that I was in it, chewing betel nuts, towed melon seeds, nibbled melon, and turned over a small book. Occasionally, with no snacks to eat and no books to read, I would take long, machine-rolled noodles, pinch a bunch and mindlessly munch on them for a few hours. That crunchy crackle, like a lonely rat gnawing, remains in the memory for a long time. I even remember those dreams that I had in it, color, or black and white, with a sweet smell of jujube flowers, and the texture of wood, the image is frozen on the young negative.

That cupboard was made by father himself. Jujube wood is very hard, to make strong furniture, it will take a lot of effort, after many processes, so my father asked many carpenters, no one is willing to do. In the end, my father took matters into his own hands. I remember the morning of the day he cut the jujube tree, I looked up at the branches that have been dispersed in late autumn, and the clear sky above, suddenly felt that my nose was very sour, thinking that I could no longer climb the tree, to enjoy the search for those ripe dates, no longer in the afternoon in August, the neck was sour, only looking forward to seeing the translucent dates, in the bamboo pole waved by my mother, the snap fell down. It hit my back. It hurt so much.

But these sentimental feelings, soon stripped away by the enthusiasm of the father, evaporated without a trace. I would get in the way of my father's saws, my fires, or just my own wild self-talk. My father decomposed the jujube wood into a large board, boiled it in a large pot of boiling water for three days, and then put it indoors, let it slowly dry naturally. The process of drying lasted a whole winter, and finally, I was impatient, and my father was in no hurry to polish it again and again with the plane until those delicate and beautiful patterns, like flowers, were spread out in the yard. I like to gently touch the texture with my hand, feeling like silk, so smooth, so soft, an inch, I can see the past bees fly butterfly dance of the successful time, and the joy of the fruitful time.

Father said that jujube trees are the most admirable kind of trees, they can grow all over the sky, do not pick drought and flood, regardless of love. Jujube flowers brew honey, honey is the top quality; Jujube can be practical, can also make wine; And the solid jujube wood, because the worms do not eat, the grain is not cracked, the color is very beautiful, and become the best choice for wheel axles in the old days. Used to make furniture, it is really wronged it. I did not understand, so I asked my father, such a good jujube wood, why the carpenters are not willing to do it? My father laughed, scratched my nose, and said that only people like us, who have the patience to go through a complicated process, can see the final beautiful wardrobe.

By the time the wardrobe was finished, it was another fall. One of my rituals of worship is to lie down in the closet where you can still smell the fine aroma, close your eyes slightly, and have a good sleep. When I woke up, my head has been covered with colorful clothes, they are like hunting flags, in the autumn wind, the old dream of a jujube tree for more than ten years, poula one by one.

Then I left home and went to many places, but wherever I went, the first thing I bought was a small cabinet. I've bought plastic cabinets that fold up, wooden ones that smell heavily of paint and tend to crawl out of insects, and clumsy ones that crack in less than a year. But no matter how much money I spend, I can never get the feel of a handmade cabinet again. This regret, like years of old habits, has become an irreversible crack, deeply embedded in your memory, so that you think that they have been there since the beginning.

Later, I also have my own home, I spent nearly 100,000 yuan to decorate my own house, and bought expensive wardrobe to match. I also once wanted to put the jujube wood cabinet, thousands of miles away to move to their own home, in order to continue the dream of childhood. But it has been blocked and ridiculed by many people, including parents, they all say, what a soil style, how heavy wood, who else, like you, love the old to such a point regardless of harmony?I thought for a long time and finally gave up. Perhaps, let that a smoky old dream, temporarily locked in the fragrance of logs, is the most appropriate way to cherish the memory. As long as I still remember, remember the time when I locked myself in the cabinet, remember all my dreams and love, remember the simplicity and patience of the handmade era, this is enough.