Retracing the road of chopping firewood as a child (3)

Text/sgasun

Think about what a useless person I was at that time. And it was because of the unforgettable memory of "working his muscles and bones and starving his body and skin" on this road in his later life that he became a man who was extremely strong in body, mind and will.

So my deep feeling about this road may be more unusual than others. Even Zhongzhong, Laosan, and Xiaoyue, who are willing to accompany me on this road again, although they understand, they may not be able to fully understand my attachment and affection for this road as a child who was different from them when I was a child. That attachment that won’t go away.

When they were young, they grew up in the streets and alleys, going up to the mountains to cut firewood, go down to the rivers to fish, etc. Work that required physical strength very early on was part of their daily life as children. They were used to it and were commonplace.

At a young age, their footprints must have been all over the mountains and ravines outside their homes. This kind of memory may not only mean hardship, adventure, freedom, and freedom to them, but it is not like me who can't carry a shoulder. For those who can't lift it with their hands, it is the first time they experience this arduous adventure and the taste is so unforgettable.

Coincidentally, when I returned to my hometown that time, at Zhongzhong’s house, he actually showed me the scabbard of a woodcutter he had used when he was a child. He said he would use this to test others to see if they knew what it was for.

I felt emotional about the object and sighed in my heart, isn’t this the scabbard in my memory that I just described? Isn’t it the first tool I used when I first went up the mountain to cut firewood? Now I can actually touch the real thing again. So I quickly took a photo with my phone (see picture).

This object may be unfamiliar to others, but to me, nothing is more familiar or intimate than it.

The first time I tied it around my waist, I inserted a heavy wood chopping knife into it and carried it on my back. When walking on the mountain road, because my waist was not strong enough, I tied a wood chopping tool around my waist. It fell loosely, and every time I took a step, the back of the knife slapped my buttocks, causing pain (luckily it didn't hang on my front crotch!). But it is impossible to carry it cross-body, otherwise the knife can easily hurt someone.

When a person just goes out, this image is already embarrassing enough.

It was my first time to cut firewood, and I was in a state of panic almost all the time in the mountains. The deep and dense forest was frightening. I was afraid of getting lost, poisonous snakes, and wild beasts. Anyway, I was just afraid.

Later, when I was in college, I read a quote from President Roosevelt: For us, the greatest fear is fear itself. It was an enlightenment, a sudden realization, and I have been in awe and admiration for this president ever since.

Therefore, the so-called firewood that was picked up was only a few rotten logs that could not burn. After being tied up, it became even more ugly, loose and crooked. When placed next to everyone's firewood, it was simply embarrassing.

Usually around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, it is getting late, and the woodcutter has to hit the road to go home. Otherwise, it will be dark before we get out of the mountain!

Coming out of the dense forest on the mountain path, we finally reached the main road. Those little pieces of firewood sticks had already made my young shoulders red, swollen and peeling. I grinned, but I didn't dare to cry. And one person always falls at the back of the line. Others soon moved further away. Xiaoping always slows down and waits for me to catch up before walking together.

Later, Xiaoping also felt that it was a bit embarrassing for me to carry such a few "forked sticks" back. I saw a cut off section of a fir tree as thick as a bowl near the river beach on the roadside, which was only about one meter long. He then asked me to throw away the firewood sticks I carried on my shoulders and pick up the fir tree. He used a knife to peel off the rough bark to make it smoother so that the flesh on my shoulders would not be too much. Ask me to carry this piece of wood home as firewood.

So, I had no choice but to carry this piece of fir tree home with all my courage, because I was afraid that it would be confiscated when I left the forest farm. Once you think you are cutting down a tree, not only the firewood will be confiscated, but the knife will also be confiscated.

I have never picked up Chaihuo’s shoulders, so I replaced it with a round piece of wood. Although it looked like I had hit Chaihuo, it was still difficult to handle the wood on my shoulders. I won’t change my shoulders. Anyway, this journey is all training. Besides hardship it is still hardship.

Not to mention climbing a steep ladder. In the small open space under the ladder sill, many people cutting firewood were resting. Most of them had large and solid bundles of firewood, usually weighing dozens of kilograms, and some weighed more than a hundred kilograms. Some even picked them up alone. Two loads of firewood, putting the first load down, walking back a few hundred meters to pick up the second load, and taking turns carrying it home.

As soon as the firewood was picked up on their shoulders, their shoulders would be pressed into a deep groove. The Mao Mao who carried the firewood trembled, and their breathing was heavy but even. On the calves of the feet, veins were twisting and turning like earthworms under the dark bronze skin.

Looking at my skin as white as paper, and then looking at the stick of firewood I picked up and thrown on the roadside that no one wanted, I deeply understand what it means to be ashamed and ashamed.

After finally coming out of the mountains, what makes me even more uneasy is the ten minutes that I have to walk through the streets and alleys on my way home. You can tolerate it a little when people you don't know look at you in a strange way, but you just blush with embarrassment. You don't know them anyway. What's terrible is that during that period of time on the road in front of your house, the neighbors are all familiar to you. Not only do people look at you with their eyes, but they also tease you with all kinds of words. Then everyone makes fun of you.

It requires a lot of mental endurance.

When I got home, I was hungry, exhausted, and bruised all over. Grievance and sadness, humiliation and self-esteem, sweet and sour, if the family comforted them a little, they might burst into tears.

In the next few days, I suffered from backache and leg pain that lingered. However, once the pain all over your body disappears, you will suddenly find that something tough has grown out of your thin-skinned and tender body!

Fortunately, I didn’t give up. Every Sunday after that, I basically spent time chopping firewood on the mountain. Slowly I discovered that in addition to growing strong muscles in my originally soft-skinned body with soft hands and feet, something called toughness also began to grow in my heart.

And this kind of thing, as the burden on the shoulders becomes heavier and heavier, the body becomes stronger and stronger, the craftsmanship becomes more and more skilled, the forest becomes more and more familiar, and it becomes more and more powerful. .

A child finally grew up as a human being through interactions with mountains and paths. From then on I fell in love with the mountains, and from then on I fell in love with the water.

The steps of re-walking on the firewood-cutting road of my childhood stopped at the mountain spring in front of the ladder sill.

Because the two women traveling with them, Laosan and Xiaoyue, suggested not to go any further. Although my heart keeps moving forward. But respecting the women's advice, we stopped, took a short rest on the mountain road in front of the ladder sill, and then embarked on the return journey.

After walking out of the mountains and onto the asphalt road, Lao San finally revealed the real reason why she asked not to move forward. She is afraid of snakes. The roadside is now covered with grass and the mountains are covered with trees. It made her feel weak at her feet and panicked in her heart, for fear of encountering the most feared animal in her life.

We couldn’t help laughing when we learned this.

When I was about to leave the mountain, I received a call from my friend Agui who was far away in Guangdong. He told me that Muyi and his family from Xiangzi had arrived in Shaoguan. They were about to get together and asked about my location.

I shouted excitedly: I am walking on the road to the mountains to cut firewood when I was a child. I am in the mountains! It's a pity that we can't reunite in Shaoguan. In two days, I will be reunited with my middle school classmates who have been separated for thirty years. Can't go back for now.

Then I called Mu Yi. The person who answered the phone was Jian Xi. Said Mu Yi went out to take pictures. They stayed at the Yishan Hotel not far from my home. Hearing this, my heart felt warm. I also feel very sorry that I cannot be separated.

Think about it, Agui and Muyi were my college classmates in the 1980s, and they were also the first people I brought to travel to Phoenix in the 1980s and then fell in love with it. Later, I responded to their long-term call and became a colleague and friend at Guangdong Shaoguan University. I received a call from them when I was retracing my childhood path of chopping firewood. What a magical fate.

Fortunately, before Mu Yi’s family left, his wife just returned to Shaoguan. They had already got on the highway home, so they turned around and came back. We stayed together for another half day, the four most familiar families. Finally reunited.

My wife also gave a big red envelope to my godson who had just been admitted to a prestigious school. Everything seemed to be God's will, making up for my shortcomings.

When my wife arrived to reunite with them, it was also the time when I was reunited with my middle school classmates after thirty years of separation in Phoenix after retracing my childhood woodcutting path.

Which sentence is true: All good encounters are reunions after a long absence.

Coming out of the mountains, we walked all the way back to the city. This is how many times I walked like this when I was returning home from chopping firewood.

The only difference I feel is that the road was very long when I was a child, but now it only takes about half an hour. I still can't believe it.

Is the distance really shortened? Has the world really become smaller? Or is the scope of our hearts too large?

When I was a child, the world might be very big, but the realm of my heart was very small.

Today, the world may be very small, but the realm of the heart is very large.