That's why some people say, go too far, always forget the purpose of coming.
? --The end of the world.
......
The world of the seventies was stable and grounded without having to think about the distant ratio of a hundred dollars to ten.
Just as in those years, when I was ten years old, I could be as happy as if I had found a huge sum of money when I picked up a dollar on the way to the market with my younger brother.
And I grew up in a family like that.
But Lindsey was different.
The year I met him, it was the first time in the 1980s that a country bumpkin went to the big city of Beijing to learn a trade.
In his second year of high school, he broke a flowerpot in the school for fear of being recorded by the principal, plus I was really bad at physics. I was sent to Beijing by my mother to learn tailoring.
In those years, the technology of dressmaking had not yet reached fully automated mechanization, and most of the dressmaking factories still relied on human sewing machine operation.
The first time I traveled to Beijing was when my mother told me to do so.
When I got off the train, I was looking for my best friend, Song Xiaozhi, who had promised to come and pick me up, with just a bag on my back.
But before I could look around and find her face, I saw a boy carrying a travel bag half a head taller than him at the exit. On the back of the backpack, my name was written in black and white.
That was the first time I met Lindsey.
That was the first time I met Lindsay. He didn't look like a typical Beijinger, but he spoke a mouthful of authentic Beijing dialect.
In my memory, the year I was nineteen, it was not cold in the Imperial City.
After introducing each other and exchanging pleasantries, Lindsay settled me in a small courtyard, not very far from the hutong where he lived.
At that time, I was learning the craft of tailoring in a Beijing yard, and I was able to help make a few dresses in the meantime.
On weekends, Lindsay would always come over to chat in the name of visiting a friend of a friend, or we would go and see the streets of old Beijing.
I don't like to eat snacks, so most of the time, we are strolling through the old Beijing hutongs and parks, and every time Song Xiaozhi wants to come with us, he is always blocked by me and Lindsay for unknown reasons.
Lindsay told me that he is not a native Beijinger.
Lindsay told me that he was not originally from Beijing, but since he was two years old, he came to Beijing with his parents to start a clothing business, and then he put down his roots in Beijing, so he was able to speak a fluent Beijing dialect.
Knowing that it was my first time in Beijing, Lindsay took a day off from school and chose a weekday afternoon to take me to Tiananmen Square.
In that year, Tiananmen Square was not as crowded at lunchtime as it is now.
After walking around the gate a few times, Lindsay patted me on the arm and asked, "Do you want to go to Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall? You should be able to see the Chairman's honorable face na!"
I stared at a big round eyes incredulous and confused to follow Lindsay to get a ticket.
I looked up from the ticket booth and saw the people coming and going in the middle of this magnificent place that has traveled for thousands of years.
Just when I was immersed in my own thoughts, Lindsey suddenly knocked on my head: "What's wrong? Are you scared?"
I looked up at his angular jaw and smiled disdainfully, "What's there to be afraid of? Never afraid, bold!"
That was the first time I went to Beijing and felt the most extraordinary day.
Just like when Lindsay suddenly appeared in front of me, wrapped in a tweed coat, halfway across China, I was panicked and delighted.
Every week after that, I continued to go to the factory to learn the techniques and hitch a ride making clothes.
Occasionally Lindsay would come along behind her parents to sit at my sewing machine and chat. On the weekends, he would still take me to enjoy the sights and sounds of Beijing.
At that time, there was an old lady living in the hutong where Lindsay lived. I often go to the door when I will help the old man in front of the flower watering, day after day also gradually familiar with.
The old lady often invites me and Lindsay to take Song Xiaozhi to eat dumplings together.
Perhaps it was because of some special memories, so from then on, Beijing gave me an impression of warmth and elegance, just like the friends I met.
Such a calm and peaceful life lasted for a year.
A year later, I was able to learn enough to get my boss to invite me to stay and work.
Unfortunately, my mother brought a letter of condolence from home to send me back.
But as I grew up in the stage of my mother's strict demands, I respected her order as a sacred decree.
The day before leaving, hard to pull Lindsey to find a remote store to eat hot pot.
The winter fog and rolling steam blurred the face of Lindsay sitting across from me. It also hid the dense fog in my eyes.
"You usually talk so much, why not say a word today?"
Lindsey spat out this sentence suspiciously while eating.
Then the atmosphere between us froze for a few seconds.
In those few seconds, I decided, after all, not to tell him that I was going home.
"Maybe it's because I didn't sleep well yesterday and I just don't want to talk to you today."
Lindsey stopped his chopsticks and glared at me continuing to chew on such flavors from outside Beijing.
The next day after saying hello to Song Xiaochi, I left.
When I was leaving, I asked Song Xiaochi if she wanted to go back with me.
When I was leaving, I asked Song Xiaozhi if she wanted to go back with me, but she said she wanted to stay here because she had dreams and friends in Beijing.
I got on the same train as I did on the way back, and looked out the window at the familiar scenery, and thought that from that moment on I would be waved away from the people here, the memories here, and would never cross paths again.
After returning home to my mother's careful planning, I opened a tutorial class at home, specializing in teaching girls around the tailoring.
Because of this, the review of the spare time can also accidentally earn a little extra money.
In those days, because it was still the daughter of the family, the money earned from teaching students in a month was basically only turned over to her mother, with only a little bit of money left over for herself as pocket money.
Those days were terrifying and peaceful.
Occasionally, I would think of all the people and things I met in Beijing, and wonder what Lindsay was doing, whether the flowers at the old lady's house had bloomed or not, or what Song Xiaozhi was coming back to, and maybe I could hear about Lindsay again from her. ......
It was not until the first snowfall of that winter, when I had fewer and fewer students to teach, that I realized I had a lot of money to spend on teaching. The number of students I was taking was decreasing day by day. I had to suspend my classes for that season.
Early that morning the snow on the ground had not yet begun to melt.
I took the quilt that had been there for a few days and prepared to go out to dry it.
The moment I opened the door, Lindsey was standing in the snow wearing the same dark brown tweed coat he had worn when I first met him, a version of the hipster kid from Beijing.
"Why did you leave without telling me? Not even say goodbye? At least we have known each other for so long! Too not enough fun!"
Lin Xi smoothly took off the smoky gray scarf around his neck, and repeated the address he got from Song Xiaozhi and revised it to me.
I knew that with an address that was four-fifths wrong, he would have traveled a long way to get here.
That day I took Lindsey for a walk to Yasaka to see the place where I grew up.
In winter, when the snow melts, the streets are just mud silted up in the water.
Lindsey suddenly stopped and asked, "When are you going back to Beijing? You can't just stay at home and forget about your old job!"
I looked at Lindsey's face smiling brightly through the night, familiar and that day in the Memorial Hall I looked up at the angle of the exact overlap.
"I may, won't go back ......
said goodbye to my mother. Well, probably won't go back to Beijing ......"
The next morning, I didn't see Lindsey again.
The only thing waiting for me in the empty room was a letter on the table.
I approached and walked away for a long time, and finally opened the letter.
The letter was written in a bold handwriting, but there were only two simple words: cherish.
I looked at the wide open door and chased it out a long way, my legs and body splashed with mud and water that melted at that time, but I know that about everything, it does not help.
After Lindsey left, the weather turned. I resumed my lectures in town.
After a year of this, I finally saved enough money to travel to Beijing again.
When I once again carried my bag along the familiar hutongs and walked out many times, I only saw the old lady who planted the flowers that year, but never saw Lindsey again.
The old lady told me that Lindsay's family moved away half a year ago, as if she was going back home to her son's engagement. She didn't know anything more about it.
That morning, I once again went to Tiananmen Square.
After two years of late fall I stood at the entrance of the Memorial Hall for half an hour in the beige raincoat sent by Lindsay, but never stepped in.
The glazed tiles in the red complex shook my eyes to the point of raw pain.
The winds of fall with the cold of winter are cowering in every corner around me.
I was still in a daze when Song Xiaochi arrived with my luggage.
"Tianya, are you really never coming back? Alas, it's good to go back. I don't have to keep floating. I'm going back soon. Enough shopping ......"
That day before leaving, forced Song Xiaochi and I circled back to Tiananmen Square to take a picture as a souvenir.
Song Xiaochi do not understand but also can only be me.
......
Many years later, my daughter smiled and laughed as she turned over that photo of me in my jumper standing in Tiananmen Square again from a drawer and had to ask about the story of that time.
Looking at the old place over the years, the past memories are like a tidal wave running horse and passed.
Only in me, in Lindsay, there is no more ripples can be mentioned.
Perhaps from the first time I decided to return home and leave Beijing, the connection between us has been broken.
So all the memories and destiny, but also with that season, high mountains and far away, will not meet again ......
.