Hometown

This season, my maternal hometown is very beautiful. The scent of spring begins to permeate the young buds. It has been a long time since I let myself go to my maternal village's fields, watching the storks spread their wings and sway in the late afternoon. The taste of my hometown permeates my skin. I hesitantly stop by the pink lotus clusters and am captivated by the scent of the sky and the earth. The wind from the land of memories blows back, carrying the old traces of my maternal hometown, making my memories stir...

Hometown

Illustration: NGOC DUY

My maternal home is the sound of kites whistling in the green bamboo clumps, calling for the season to come. I remember the scorching summer days when I went back to my maternal home to roam around with my friends. Sometimes we followed the buffalo, sometimes we grilled sweet potatoes, sometimes we lay on the grass and watched the blue sky...

What we loved most was flying kites, kites that we whittled from bamboo, bent and pasted with illustrated newspapers, sometimes with cement boards. Whenever the wind blew, the kites would follow the wind and soar into the sky. At that time, we did not understand that kite flying was a long-standing cultural feature of the Vietnamese people, a desire for freedom, we just held on tightly to the kite string, without any worries, laughing and playing happily, filling the sky.

My maternal home is a fertile garden with squash and gourds growing day by day, bright red chili peppers, lush green Malabar spinach, budding eggplant bushes, and rows of bright yellow mustard flowers. In particular, my maternal home garden has many fruit trees such as guava, lemon, orange, grapefruit...

Every morning, village girls walk through gardens still wet with night dew, picking fragrant grapefruit blossoms, hastily wrapping them in handkerchiefs as if afraid someone will see them, to give to their loved ones. Having been away from their maternal home for many years, the countryside gardens are like blue smoke from the afternoon, lightly and thinly clinging to people's hearts amid the endless flow of time.

I remember the gentle river of my maternal hometown, bringing alluvium to the beach. When the afternoon falls, the nets on the river are pulled up, the sound of fishing boats tapping the roofs spreads far and wide, urging mothers and sisters to return home in time to prepare dinner. At this time, the wind blows over the newly harvested fields, leaving only stubble. The bamboo hedges in the village begin to darken. The sky turns to rain, watering the countryside. Occasionally, thunder rumbles in the eastern lightning. When the rain stops, the country music begins to play, mixed with the pungent smell of the countryside, permeating every page of childhood memories like the taste of a not-so-distant fairy tale.

I go back to my maternal home, always the same, emotions hold my steps. The kites, the river of that time linger in my memory. Taking a deep breath, the smell of my hometown is deep. The blue smoke of the afternoon plays in the wind, spreading the smell of rice, but my eyes sting because my grandmother has gone to the land of white clouds. A space of emptiness. Looking wistfully at the gardens of houses with white areca flowers falling, I feel peace in the midst of a busy life.

Far from my maternal home, many times in the bustling city, every time I hear the simple sounds of my hometown, I miss it as if it were very close. Hesitating on the day I returned, the sunlight was still yellow by the river like a thread of heaven still hanging.

An Khanh

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