Chapter 17 mother's plumage

After telling the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, the son has drooped his eyes and fell asleep, but the daughter is still staring with bad eyes. Suddenly, she hugged my neck tightly and made me feel sore: "Mom, tell me, did you become a fairy?" I was stunned for a moment, and only responded indiscriminately: "What do you say?" "Say it, say it, you must say it." She held me stubbornly. "Are you a fairy?" Am I a fairy? —Which mother was not transformed from a fairy? Like the little Weaver Girl in the story, every girl once lived by the bank of the galaxy, they weaved rainbows and spun neon, hid clouds and caught the moon, how often did they worry about it?They are the most sympathetic little daughters of the gods. They take selfies in the water all day long, amazed by their beautiful feathers and skin. They focus on their youth for a long time, and are fascinated by the brilliance.

And one day, her plumage was gone, and she put on the coarse cloth of the world——she had decided to be a mother.Some say her feathers were locked in a box and she could never fly again.It was also said that her husband had locked it, and that the key was kept in a most secret place. However, all mothers know that the fairy knows where the box is at all, and she also knows where the key is hidden. When no one is there, she will even open the box sadly, caressing those soft feathers with sad eyes, She knew that as long as the feather clothes were on, she would return to the cloud again, but she patted the soft and bright feathers again and again, and still closed the box without a sound and hid the key.

It was she who locked the old feather robe herself. She can't fly anymore, because she can't bear to fly anymore. But the cunning little daughter always peeks at the secret hidden in her mother's eyes. Many years ago, when I was a little girl myself, I used to spy on my mother in wonder. She engraved two small words on the back of the harmonica - "Jingou". Is there any story in it?That is not the mother's name, but the homonym of the mother's name. Has she ever dreamed that she is a seagull resting quietly?She doesn't know how to play the harmonica, and I can't even think of any good songs she played, but that name is my mother's mysterious feather to me. When she writes those two words lightly, she can change instantly. Man, she's another winged thing in that name that I don't know.

When my mother was drying the box was another unusual moment for her. It seemed that my mother had some good things, which were not used at all, but were just placed at the bottom of the box, and were taken out every year in the dog days to expose them to the sun. In my memory, when my mother was drying the boxes, it was the time when I was ecstatic. What does mother post?I no longer remember, what I remember is that the camphor wood box is deep and heavy, like a chaotic and dark newborn universe, and what I still remember are the gorgeous colors on the bamboo poles under the sun, and the weird but serious smell of camphor, and I touched Xi Tantan's happiness in the middle of my mother's drinking ban.

The only thing I really remember is a beautiful Hunan embroidered quilt cover, on the snow-white satin, embroidered with rabbits, emerald green beige, and red poplar flowers, and many other embroidered patterns. Things that people are surprised and admired, when the mother is tidying up, she will suddenly turn around and say: "Don't touch, don't touch, I will give it to you when you get married." When I was young, I really wanted to get married, but of course I was a little scared. For some reason, it seemed that all the good things would naturally belong to me after I got married. I thought it was a scary thing to have so many good things all at once.

That piece of Hunan embroidery seemed to have disappeared somehow, and I didn't inquire about it.For me, once something so beautiful that it is not close to real disappears, it is a thing that cannot be more reasonable.For example, peach blossoms in early spring and maple reds in late autumn, in my opinion, are so beautiful that they violate the rules. Disappeared, otherwise wouldn't it make the world crazy? The disappearance of Hunan embroidery is simply a return to Dahua for me. But what I can't forget is the happy and contented expression on my mother's face when she opened the box. She slowly looked at the Hunan embroidery. At that time, I felt that she suddenly didn't belong to the world around her. At that time, she would forget dinner and my braiding. red velvet rope.Thinking about her posture carefully, it is really the posture of a fairy stroking Yuyi affectionately. There is a memory of her previous life. She picked it up one by one with joy and sorrow, but she also knew that she would never go there again. Picking up the past - but it will not be picked up again, so the moment of looking back is more special and dignified.

Besides drying boxes, what my mother loves most is the pampering of her grandfather who died young. Sometimes she would lie on the bed with a stomachache and ask me to rest my head on her stomach. She slowly talked about her grandfather.Grandpa seems to be willing to spend money (of course because of the money), and always takes her out to eat dim sum. She always tells me how delicious the meat and soup dumplings were, and even the fried noodles and the girls’ dormitory The rock sugar soy milk I ordered in the morning (my mother always emphasizes "rock sugar" soy milk, because it is more noble than "granulated sugar" soy milk) is delicious beyond my imagination. Whenever I hear her say those things, They were all very surprised—I couldn’t associate those things with my mother anyway. As far back as I can remember, my mother was a character who ate leftovers. Braised pork and freshly fried vegetables were just taken for granted in front of my father. In front of her is always a plate of assorted leftovers and a bowl of "wiping the pot rice" (wiping the pot rice is to stir-fry the leftovers in the leftovers after cooking, and wipe off all the vegetable juices in the pot. that kind of meal), I just can't imagine what she looks like when she doesn't eat leftovers.

And the grandfather in the mother's mouth, Shanghai, Nanjing, soup dumplings, and meat are all things in the fairyland. Whenever the mother talks about those things, there is always infinite tenderness. She neither sentimental nor complains, just calmly talking.She wasn't bringing that world back, and I always knew that, and I was relieved to know that at the next meal she'd still be sitting there eating that plate of leftovers none of us liked.And at night, as usual, she would check and lock the doors and windows one by one.She has always been responsible for locking herself in this home.

What mother has not been a fairy in feathers?It's just that she hid that dress and then covered herself in the most bleak piece of sackcloth, which we sometimes thought she'd always been like. And at this moment, what is the little girl who just finished listening to the story ghostly watching? She is so young, how did she know?Did she watch too many cartoons and listen to too many stories?Did she discover something too? Was it the moment when my son accidentally dug out my stamp book?Was it the moment when I picked out Shi Tao's album or Han stele and savored each page?Was it when I suddenly looked back and listened to them playing a familiar piano etude?Or is it the moment when I take them through the spring every year, and stop involuntarily beside the rhododendron or under the tassel tree?

Or when I entrusted my father's medal or the Peking picture treasured in my childhood with emotion, or when I rummaged through the dried leaves in the big dictionary, or when I softly taught them to recite a Tang poem when……. What language flows out of my eyes?Is there any music that has caused the soles of my wrists?Why did the little girl ask: "Mom, did you become a fairy?" Am I not a mother who is as peaceful as thousands of mothers?Didn't I keep recruiting girls' feather clothes extremely secret?When did I betray myself? There is an abandoned wooden cutting board under my desk. I always want to hang it up as a painting. It should be a solemn one. It has withstood the knife marks and chisel marks of thousands of lives. Yes, but for some reason, I never put it up...

Aren't all mothers in the world such ordinary and inconspicuous chopping boards?Aren't they all accepting countless sharp cuts but silent chopping boards like that? And that little girl, with her mysterious intuition, actually asked me: "Mom? Are you a fairy?" I broke her little hand and rescued my neck that was so numb from being hung, I wanted to say to her: "Yes, mother used to be a fairy when she was a little girl, but now, she's not, you are, you are a little fairy!" But I stared into her bright eyes and simply said: "No, mother is not a fairy, you go to sleep." "real?" "real!" She closed her eyes obediently, but then opened them uneasy again. "If you are a fairy, teach me the magic of immortality!" I smiled without answering, and tucked the quilt up for her. She rolled her eyes excitedly, wondering what she was thinking. Then she fell asleep. Since the fairy in the story recovered her feather clothes, she probably went back to the clouds to sleep. The wind sleeps, the bird sleeps, and even the night sleeps. I stayed between the two small beds and stared at their sleeping faces for a long time.