Summer trips

Suddenly I crave a backpacking trip. Alone. Wandering like a bird. So I put my backpack on my shoulder, climbed on my iron horse, escaped the noisy city, escaped the crowded space of rooftops…

There are many abandoned lands in the suburbs, the roadside grass is as beautiful as a painting. Every time I pass by, I take out my phone to film, just need a tripod to mount the phone, point the lens towards the sun, silently and wait. And then there is a beautiful sunset video. As for me, I lie down on the grass, enjoying the sunset. Every day the sun goes and comes back in that vast sky, but I can never watch the sunset when I am in the city. It is as if the roofs have swallowed the sunset, hidden it in a box to admire alone.

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I wandered among the rice fields that had turned yellow. The rice flowers were plump thanks to mother earth, now bowing their knees on top of each other, one layer pressing the other like waves. Rice waves. I raised my selfie stick high, filming the scene of the rice fields in the early morning. The rice flowers were covered in dew, sparkling happily to welcome the dawn. The sunlight dyed the rice grains darker, until the dew cleared, the whole space was a brilliant yellow, unable to distinguish which was the yellow of the sunlight and which was the yellow of the rice. I took a deep breath of the fragrant scent of the fields. The scent that followed me when I was barefoot and bareheaded, leading a cow several times my size to find grass. How many years had it been since I walked barefoot on the grass? I could not answer the question posed by time. I threw my sandals at the base of the tree, happily walking barefoot on the wet grass. Soft. Caressing. My childhood, oh my childhood, I have returned here, to bathe in the memories of the past…

Summer is the season of lotus blooming. The lotus scent wafts through the air, gentle but not as strong as the scent of laurel. Lying on the grass, head resting on arms, legs crossed, eyes half-closed, enjoying the cool lotus scent, the fresh scent of the fields, thinking to myself how happy I am. Life is short, live today, die tomorrow, enjoy every moment of happiness, don't worry and make your heart suffer more. Take a good nap at noon, when you wake up, drop the fishing rod. In the afternoon, find some dry branches to make a fire, grill the fish you just caught. The thin smoke lingers in the air for a while then disappears.

I remember when I was a kid, every time we herded cows in the fields, we would steal sweet potatoes to roast. We would blow on them and eat them, they were so hot that our mouths burned, but we still laughed heartily and happily. At that time, we also wondered where the smoke would go, and then we all agreed that the smoke would rise up into the sky and form those dark clouds, and then it would rain. Which child nowadays doesn’t know that clouds are formed by the condensation of water vapor? Children today have a lot more than we did back then. Better conditions. More material things. Only they don’t have a “fierce childhood” like back then…

I searched for my childhood, searched for the hot summer nights when I spread out a mat to sleep on a bamboo bed to keep cool. I brought a thin mat with me, tied a mosquito net to a tree branch, and that night I slept in the field. The summer night, the wind blew coolly, the lotus scent became more fragrant as the night wore on, and frogs croaked. All of this lulled me to sleep. There were the children playing a mock battle, using reeds cut from the edge of the field to make swords, shouting “cheese, cheese” just like in a swordplay movie. When I was tired, I rolled on the grass and lay panting, then laughed out loud because Teo had just ripped his pants. There, we were playing bride and groom. The girls gathered together to pick dandelions from the edge of the field, weaving them into a beautiful yellow wreath. The most handsome and most beautiful children were chosen to be the bride and groom. Also, the bride was welcomed with “bang, bang” firecrackers, then the nursery rhyme “the bride and groom broke the vase, blamed it on the kids, got spanked” was sung loudly, making the bride and groom angry and chase after them. When I woke up, I was still smiling because of the mischievous pranks of my childhood. I wondered what my friends in the countryside were doing at this time, if they still remembered their childhood days…

Summer has just begun, there is still plenty of time for me to roam and explore the interesting suburbs. I feel like I am a child again, living carefree without worries. I no longer remember that I am a teacher, having to maintain a serious image in the eyes of my students. I am no longer pressured by targets and competitions. There is only the joy of wandering around alone, freely breathing in the fresh air, freely looking for sunsets to watch, looking for the moon to confide in.

Summer and solo road trips. How wonderful!

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