Afternoon. A cool breeze blew along the streets. The wind blew away the heat of the dry sunny days. Suddenly the car turned into the old street. It had been a long time since I had been back to the city, it seemed like the familiar feeling of the past was gone. The old street appeared before me, strange, familiar...
A corner of the capital.
Here is the old tamarind tree in front of the apartment complex gate. I remember years ago, when the tamarind blossomed, when I came home from somewhere, I could smell the cool, gentle scent of the flowers. After each night, the tamarind flowers fell white on the ground. My best friend wrote a poem about the tamarind flowers with the line "a thousand stars fell from the night". Every tamarind season, the children in the apartment complex eagerly awaited the fruit season. Not to eat, but to harvest and sell for money for the end of summer party. They were only allowed to pick slightly bruised or unripe fruits to dip in salt. It was true that children in times of scarcity, the tamarinds were extremely sour but they still chewed deliciously. Looking up at the tamarind canopy, I imagined a man holding a bamboo pole and grabbing bunches of tamarinds, the children standing under the tree eagerly looking up. Then every time a tamarind fell, the whole group rushed out, competing to pick it up, sometimes even arguing. At the end of the session, each child would sit and count to see who had picked up more.
The old tamarind tree has witnessed many scenes of collective activities during the subsidy period. The three-story collective house, each house is only 18 square meters. All other activities such as cooking, bathing, and cleaning are public and must be done on the ground. The children in the collective, when the time comes, call each other to wash rice, wash vegetables... When Tet comes, they wash leaves, clean beans to prepare to cook banh chung. It is freezing cold but everyone's cheeks are rosy because they work and talk like popcorn. The best thing is to sit and boil banh chung under the tamarind tree. The children always compete with the adults to stay up for the first half of the night to gather to "play cards with beard", and also roast corn, potatoes, and cassava. Banh chung is also boiled together in the area. At that time, the old men were all soldiers, so they were able to buy large military barrels. Each barrel contained about thirty or forty pieces. Each family's banh chung was marked separately to avoid confusion. This matter of marking with green, red, purple, yellow, ropes, and cloth strings is usually the privilege of children, especially girls.
Laughing again at the memory of the “collective hair washing” game. Every two or three days, the long-haired girls would gather together to pick up fallen tamarind leaves, wash them, boil them, and then bring them out to the middle of the yard. Each one had a pot, a basin, and a wooden chair. While washing their hair, they chatted, as happy as Tet. In the past, I only washed my hair with tamarind leaves (at most, I added half a lemon) but my hair was still lush and green. I don’t know if it was because I washed my hair with tamarind leaves too much that my hair was so thick and black?! Not far from the apartment complex was a row of milk flower trees that, as scheduled, would start blooming in October. That day, under these milk flower trees, I first babbled the words “I love you”; the first time my heart trembled like a swaying leaf; the first time I knew what it meant to pick up and drop off… I didn’t ride my bicycle, but instead I pushed it with one hand and held the other’s hand to extend the path to the front gate of my house… The old street is still here, where is that person from that year?
Memories buried in the dust of time, seemingly faded, now only need a cool breeze to blow away all traces of time. It seems that just waiting for a leaf to gently touch the box of memories will open, so many memories will overflow... The old street is still here, the memories are still here. Small street, will you come back here again!
(According to nguoihanoi.vn)
Source: https://baophutho.vn/pho-cu-226457.htm
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