--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For a while there I was flying, playing in the sky in a pair of white skates.
When I first learned to fly, I appalled myself quite a bit, desperately fluttering my wings. Sometimes the struggle was so great that they actually fell.
Later, after a long time of flying alone, the skill was honed. The heart was not alarmed, the wings hardly moved, and the atmosphere only held them in place, allowing them to soar noiselessly and silently.
By then I was not able to get down on the ground as often, but the skates with the red wheels were still strapped to my feet. They weren't too heavy, and they were a beautiful color.
The mystery of flying is not complicated. There is only one great taboo, which has been repeated on several occasions during falls - when you enter this realm of supreme freedom and paradise, there is no turning back for the rest of your life, it is not a command, it is entirely up to you. If you like to be in heaven, you must remember - don't look back, don't look back, can't look back - because after all, you are still a beginner in flight. One day, when the Dao is sufficient, these taboos will naturally dissolve, but for the moment it is better not to forget the command.
I kept these words firmly in mind, and even as I slowly turned in the sky, I only flicked my body and arms sideways. As for the floating shadows passing under my eyes, even though they were colorful and dazzling, I dared not look back. My eyes were always directed toward the firmament that was ushered in front of me.
One day at dusk, soaring up in the sky again, I became a little bolder and more stubborn, and refused to come down even at night to go home.
While I have no experience in night flying, I am crazy happy to chase after the clouds and the moon for 3,000 miles.
This time, I was able to fly through layer after layer of darkness, disregarding my physical strength, and flew endlessly.
At that time, perhaps tired, I was half lying on my side, and suddenly there was a blaze of lights below, so many crowds laughing and chattering in the illuminated night, that even the sound of the wind sweeping by my ears was broken up by them.
I just looked down in wonder and was shocked to see that it was actually my own hometown, radiantly illuminating the dark sky.
I didn't stop flying, I just couldn't help but look back with joy.
This movement was so great that before I had time to shout, I had already crashed.
No pain in the fall, appalled numb over, open your eyes, touch the ground, found sitting on the stone steps of the side entrance of the Taipei Founding Fathers Memorial Hall Square, the pair of skates well followed me. The strange thing is how it has suddenly dusk.
I still can not move, I feel the limelight flash like to blind me, I raised my hand to block, my hand has been shoved into a ballpoint pen, a book of paper, a smiling face said to me, "Sanmao, please sign!"
Originally there was a name like that, why I had forgotten it myself.
No one has ever called it that again where I live. And, well, thousands of years have passed.
I picked up the pen, raw and learn to write these two words, write and write will want to cry - is the hometown is not to look back, this taboo has long been understood, how so inattentive, good flying people actually fell down. I fell down, dreaming of falling down, just to take a look at my beloved place.
The rain, right then and there, caught in a light red dust mist, killed me in a thousand directions.
I sat still and took a deep breath. Knowing that I could not escape, I could only steady myself and watch how the roiling dust and water came to overwhelm me.
At that moment I heard a sigh, "It's good to go down, after all, the sky is also the silence of the underworld--" so familiar and loving voice was saying to me, "Who told you to go after what! Don't you understand where on earth most moves you?"
What rain is I am no longer familiar with, where I live, it does not rain often, much less in the rainy season
The days without rain are also not very good, the flowers refuse to bloom, the grass does not want to grow, and the garden of my heart has always been too dry.
There was a long period of time when I quietly hid and swallowed salty tears, but they did not moisturize my heart except for melting my stomach. Later, I stopped swallowing them. People who often have stomach aches are flying uncomfortable.
It is said that those who cross over -- those who are called dead in our world -- are taken to the "looking glass" before they actually cross over. They saw their hometown and relatives on the platform, and realized that they had become souls, and had divided the boundary between life and death, and could never come back. At that time, because of the heart's reluctance, the soul will also shed tears, and then, they will be taken away. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to get a good look at the world, but I'm sure you're going to be able to get a good look at the world.
It was a sudden fall back to my hometown.
Falling down, the rain started to fall. Sitting on the steps of the National Father's Memorial Hall, the skyscrapers blocked my view, and I couldn't see my father and mother at home on Nanjing East Road, but I knew the way, so I stood up and walked in that direction as if I were sleepwalking.
The rain fell in large drops on my body, face and hair. The cool water, slowly seeping into my skin and blurring my eyes, they still kept pouring until it became a small river through the heart that had dried and cracked from all the years I had been buried in the yellow soil.
Then, every morning, every late night, when suddenly waking up to the sound of rain, I realized that I was still at my parents' side.
The "lookout" is not for me, not in a hurry to be taken away in a blink of an eye, so it is still a flesh and blood person in the world.
This is a fact, so I can't talk about the sadness and happiness.
Since it is still a human being, there is no need to struggle anymore. The body falls into the red dust, and then back to the seven feelings and six desires is also of course. The most important thing to remember is that you can't be a good person, but you can be a good person, and you can be a good person!
It has always been a person who does not have an organizer, because there are not many things to remember in the days on that island. Besides, I can fly, and when appointments and things that I don't want to remember come, I just take the skates with me and fly to wherever I want.
It's only been three or four days since I returned to Taipei, and a strange notebook has been filled with phone calls so pervasive that I haven't had a meal at home in a month's time.
One morning, I was nailed to a chair next to the phone again, playing with the word "positive" for every five phone calls, just as I did when I was in elementary school when I was electing the class president and the head of some unit. When I scratched the ninth positive word, I was mad, I told the other side. "Sanmao is dead! Please go over there to me her!" Hanging up the phone himself appalled, hands blindfolded.
Necessarily crazy, no longer shed tears will actually cry for the ninth positive word. The lack of bravado turned my mood to something I couldn't understand. Opened the notebook, look at the things to do, to go to the place, think about will meet a long goodbye love friends, I jumped into their clothes inside to the watchman's mother shouted: "to go! Come back as soon as you can! It's pouring!" And rushed out.
It is not said that the sky is lonely, why is there such a thing on earth. The lone chopsticks on the table at home at noon still make me almost heartbroken. The May rains are so joyful that I can't jump into them, drench them until they dissolve, and give my flesh and blood to the thick earth. When the sun comes out, I will be transformed into a puddle of blossoms.
I have been a big stranger to the rainy season, I guess.
But I've been weaving in and out of the cracks of the rain, rushing from place to place. All while sitting in a square box that refused to miss a single drop of rain.
It was already 4:30 p.m. after lunch that day, and when I looked in my notepad, I didn't have another thing until 6:30, so suddenly I had two hours entirely to myself.
I stood in the rain, like a stupid bird out of its cage by accident, so happy that I didn't know where to go.
I ran to the Plaza building in front of the train station to find my father's office. The place that never had time to go.
Quietly pushed open the wooden door and sat for a few minutes with the secretary lady in the outer room and two of my father's good young helpers. Then my father's guests left and I stepped in softly, smiling and shouting, "Finally escaped to play!"
Father, conspicuously with a surprise that was not hidden either, asked me what I was going to do. I said, "Go step on the streets of Taipei! It's a luxury to have two hours to yourself!"
Dad immediately packed his briefcase, grabbed an umbrella, left work early, and joined me as a truant child.
Every time we passed a store, a street stall, a snack bar, my father would ask me, "Want anything? Want us to stop!"
What is there to want there? What I want is just to go crazy in my beloved messy city and enjoy the gaudiness and bustle of the human world.
It was still raining. A lifetime of not having the habit of blocking the rain, but at that time there was a person beside me to open an umbrella for me. The person who gave me life. Passing by the bookstore, I couldn't help but slow down my pace. The result was being sucked in. So many books I hadn't read made me panic with excitement, touching one after another. I saw my friends' books on the shelves, people I knew, and I couldn't help but rejoice again.
As we crossed the street, I suddenly said to my father, "Since I came back home, today is the happiest day, even the raindrops on my body want to smile yeah!"
We crossed one street after another, and suddenly I saw the nunchucks that Bruce Lee used in the movie in the window, and I shouted out, "Buy me! Buy me!"
Strangely enough, as a child, I never asked my father for anything.
My father bought three sticks, and when I paid for them I ran off to look at something else, not caring. I had money in my pocket, though.
Received taylors, and deserved it, for he was my father.
There was a sporting goods club counter on the third floor of the Kung Fu Club, and they sold skates - the high-toe boot kind.
When I fell out of the sky fashion brought my own old pair with me, but as soon as I walked home, they disappeared. At that time, I looked around for a while, a little chagrin in my heart, really disappeared something's can't force it to come back, but I've always missed them, and sad.
Father asked someone to try the skates on me, and the only color that came out was black. "She wants white, with preferably red wheels on it." Father said.
"That clear red like fudge." I added quickly.
The store lady politely said that the white ones would be available the next day, and I rejoiced a great deal more in advance.
It was still raining, and there wasn't much time left, when my father suddenly said, "Take you to the bus****!"
We searched for a while before finding the stop sign. My father pretended to be sophisticated, I peeked at him, he is not at all big to find the station, after all, is also nearly seventy years old father, with his environment and physical strength, there is really no need to squeeze the car. But it was a habit he'd had for years, and anytime I was given the chance to educate myself, I gladly accepted it.
I never regarded being invited to dinner as a social occasion. I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to do this, but I'm sure I'll be able to do it," he said.
I ran home on a rainy night, and it was already four o'clock in the evening. I had the key with me, and before I could turn it, the door was already open, and of course my mother was waiting for me.
So what if she opened the door late at night without my daughter when I was alone abroad? Thinking so caused me to panic again.
I pushed my mother to go to bed, and I could see that she was still reluctant to leave, but for the sake of her health, I hardened my heart and did not allow her to speak.
Running into my cushiony little living room, in the silence of a soft lamp waiting for me to come home and the music of the FM radio station that my father had played softly for me in advance, came two things that had been brought down from heaven.
Standing on the beige carpet was a small, date-red bicycle with a plain white mesh basket mounted on the front, and inside the basket, a pair of lying skates. It was the same color and style as my old pair.
I froze, and gently went up to touch them, not daring to retouch them for fear they would disappear again.
In foreign countries, material life has never dared to indulge themselves, although there is no lack of anything, those things after all, not quietly, not for nothing, not without a thought again and again, give up this only to get that.
How do you suddenly have a think also dare not think of the luxury, only because I accidentally fell home from the sky.
I sat at the window and looked and looked and looked at that one bike. The rain was dripping outside, not in a dream. But what about my fear! What about my joy; I was so joyful that I was afraid they were going to slip away from me again. What had frightened me? The next day, when I came back from lunch out, and hastily changed into blue cloth pants and a white shirt, and stepped into my sneakers, and carried my bicycle downstairs with great gusto, my mother rejoiced, and asked me, "Where are you going to skate? Don't ride too far!"
I said I would go to the Founding Father's Memorial Hall, play a little and then go home, because dinner was again scheduled.
I was tired of riding to that place, and the gray sky was covered with dark clouds. Large drops of rain sprinkled down again like beans as I set the car down in the square. I sat down on a stone bench to take off my sneakers when three punk youths across the street spoke up, "Take off your shoes in public!"
I ignored them, placing my sneakers inside the mesh blue and lowering my head to tie the straps of my skates.
Then switching shoes on my left foot, the three guys yelled again, "Take off your shoes again!"
I sat with my skates on, waiting quietly for the guys across the street. Just hoping they'd come over.
They hung back and slowly forced their way towards me, three against one, and surprisingly, the momentum wasn't overwhelming enough.
Before they got close, I raised my head and said, "Don't you mess with me!" Strange how the three that came were using the wrong grammar on people.
They still didn't go, but stopped walking. One of them said, "Miss looks familiar, may I sit next to you-."
The chair wasn't mine, and I actually laughed at them and said, "No!"
They walked away and sat on the stool next to me, their mouths still not clean.
The rain sprinkled down in large drops. It wasn't dense. I tried to sneak slowly with these three men on my back, and fearing that they would steal the cloth bag hanging from my bicycle, I almost fell when I took a step back and the ground was uneven.
Then I simply slipped toward them, and of course, when I did, their long legs crossed and stuck out.
I stopped, both sides frozen in the rain.
"Coming through ......," I said, the other pretending not to hear.
"I said - Coming through!" I say it again, slowly.
At this point, the three men stood up in unison, pretending to be fine as they desperately tried to speak to each other, letting go of the idea of teasing me.
With the others out of the way, I was happy again, and enjoyed myself in the rainy, sparsely populated plaza. When I slipped away to ask a passerby what time it was planted, I was shocked to realize that three hours had flown off.
It was the first time I'd let go of the single to play since returning to Taiwan, and I was so happy.
Living alone has become a habit, and it's hard to change. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that, but I think I'm going to be able to do it.
The letters on the desk have been piled up into a landscape, and late at night, I slowly opened them one by one, read them carefully, thought about them slowly, and then treasured them in the drawer. Outside the window is already dawn coming.
Those letters are all written to Sanmao. Then go back to do the three hairs need time to balance the psychological distance, time is not, stubbornly back to their own is not a smart thing, broke a party formed a willow branch is also a pity. Leave everything to time, don't be anxious!
The rain, in my only lunchtime slot is no longer gentle. They poured down, furiously cradling heaven and earth in its arms, my bicycle lonely, and I lost the desire to drench myself.
At home, where I take off my shoes, I change into skates, step over the carpet, skate in small steps down the limited number of uncarpeted aisles, slide into the wide kitchen, and call out, "Momma's sorry!" Hit a turn and squeeze back in toward the bathroom. Mother said, "You think you're in the Founding Fathers' Memorial?"
"Yeah? It's really over there. 'Mind to body', don't you get that little magic trick?" I said a big word in front of her.
Saying that I slid out onto the back balcony to look at a pot of daisy leaves in the rain and shouted, "What a downpour!" Turned a corner, bumped into the furniture and fell.
I don't know what time it was when I got home again that night, but I ran into Lin Huaimin at the end of the alley, whose dance club was right next to my parents' house.
I shouted out wildly, "Ah Min! Ah Min!" I ran toward him with open arms in the drizzle, and he hugged me tightly and spun me around, and when he dropped me to the ground, he asked, "Do you want to watch us line dance?"
"Yes! But there's no time." I said.
The taxi I had gotten out of was still parked next to me, and Min ran into it quickly, shouting "Bye!" I ran a few steps after the cab and shouted, "See you later, Min!" The quiet alleyway was deserted, and a song by "Beatles" was slowly sung in my heart: "What did you say? I said goodbye! What did you say? I said goodbye--"
I stepped on the song step by step on the steps - life is easy to get together and break up ah, even goodbye are in a hurry!
Rarely do I have time to have a meal with my family at a Western restaurant near my home, which is also a strange place to put bookshelves. The other side of the dining table a few black glass plate, the top did not put the tablecloth.
My brother said those were motorized toys, and I said I'd only seen the ones in Spain that were held up to people with another plate underneath. They laughed and said that was old-fashioned.
"Here, try it!" My brother turned one on, and the dynamic flow and splendor of the piece truly dazzled my mind. They reminded me of the hand-painted movie "Yellow Submarine" that I'll never forget. Saw it six times in a row while in West Berlin just for the colors in it.
"You don't care if it's a good color or not for a moment, focus on the controls! Look, this big mouth is sort of you, as soon as you come out, there will be four little elves surrounding you from all sides to eat you, you start to run away quickly, if you can't eat it, you'll get points." My brother explained enthusiastically. "Okay, I'll try!" I sat down.
Before I could see where I was, the elf ghost was already here!
"Ah! It's been eaten!" I said.
"The secret to this toy is that you know when to run away, when to turn, when to go into the tunnel, and when you're timid, immediately take a Power Pill to scare the dumber pink ghost. Timing, not hesitating, reacting quickly, figuring out the personality of each of these little ghosts-" his brother rattled off.
"I've played this game so many times!" I laughed.
"Isn't this the first time you've sat in front of a motorized toy?" He said curiously. I ignored him and just asked, "Is there a knob turner that doesn't count points, or escape, or get eaten, and just play and play and play and play with the pixies even. Otherwise I'd get sick of it!"
The brother was dumbfounded and shook his head and walked away, only to be heard saying, "Can't help people like you!"
Still don't understand how such a repetitive game can be played a million times and still be escaping. If you can't escape, why don't you think of yourself the other way around as an elfin ghost, and not have another strange love-in!
My brother sat down intently, his score rising by the minute, a truly complex expression on his face.
I quietly bent down and whispered to him, "Look closely at the waves and the clouds--" a distraction that snapped and was eaten away.
"Don't you harm anyone, okay!" He shouted.
I pretended I couldn't hear him and went to the window to watch the rain, shaking with laughter.
It was still raining non-stop, and the whole dead refusal to take an umbrella thing was causing my mother heartache. Every day when I go out, there will be an argument.
Sometimes I lose and go out with an umbrella and go home without one. I've always had a hard time managing things outside of my body, and my subconscious was the first to refuse to cooperate.
That day, the clouds were thick and it was a cloudy day. I quickly took out my bicycle and rode in the direction of Dunhua South Road. I hit a roundabout, surrounded by either coyotes or city tigers. I stopped on the side of the road, knowing it wouldn't be safe to squeeze in.
There was a police officer, and I smiled at him and sat on my bike. He asked me kindly where I was going, and I said I was going to the Founding Father's Memorial Hall! "Then you go toward Fuxing South Road, that road is closer."
I wanted to take a detour to see the scenery, but my riding skills were so poor that I couldn't get past a small roundabout, so I obediently turned back.
Just because I didn't want to take South Fuxing Road, I turned back, and it was another joy that came to me.
After returning to Taipei, I didn't go anywhere else but to restaurants.
My heart wants to run to the Founding Father's Memorial Hall in the only time I have free time, and that place has become a place of nostalgia.
Aromantic thoughts are most complicated, but how the object is a building.
I rode around that square over and over again, slipping slowly round and round - what was I looking for, what was I waiting for, what was I clinging to. What am I looking forward to?
Don't dare to think about it, can't think about it, once you think about it is panic.
What people are whispering to me: here is where you fall back to your hometown, here is where you bow your head and move the mortal heart.
The time has not yet come, but things have changed, and then I want to ascend to the direction that is not allowed to come down - I can not go back there.
No, I still don't want an umbrella, the feathers are wet themselves, willingly. Then there's no rush, just enjoy the relaxation of following the waves!
Dreaming, my favorite book in the little prince ran to me and said: "You should not be afraid, when I have to go back from the earth to their own asteroid to go up is also a little afraid, because I know that the cobra will be sent to bite me to death, in order to leave the shell on the ground back. It hurts when you have to leave your homeland too, a lot, but it's only a blink of an eye-"
I stroked his hair and said to him, "Good boy, I don't have an asteroid to go to to plant the only rose yet! Let me take my time and wait, when the time comes nature will take its course, besides, I'm afraid of pain!"
The little prince went back satisfied, holding the other sheep I had drawn for him. I forgot to tell him that the sheep had not been put in the box, and to beware that it had gone and eaten the delicate rose. The incident worried me all night, forgetting that the rose itself had four thorns!
It was still raining, and I ran into a cab, and there was no time to lose, and the days crowded the days, and the time flew by, too late to catch, too late to seep away through my fingers, and my hands were a wet patch of water.
But I'm not so panicked anymore. Open ten fingers, and there are pieces of time fell down, quietly fell to me, they come to endless endless as long as the open hand will be all mine.
Mr. Driver peeked at me again and again in the rearview mirror, and when he got out of the car, he insisted on refusing to collect the money, saying: "Next time there is a chance to collect again! Only please do not say again closed pen - "I was shocked to see the car license on his last name Lee, then said:" Mr. Lee, our destiny may only be this moment, please do not charge! I appreciate it!" A banknote was shoved between the two men and I dropped the money and fled the car. Mr. Lee then stopped the car in the middle of the road to catch up with me, and by then I had already entered a restaurant. "Sanmao-" He was too clumsy to say anything else.
I reached out and took the money I'd already paid for the car.
Opening my palm, the bill that had been tucked away, whence it came, was transformed into a dewy lotus flower