Weed Scene | Together We Arrive in Dali

2025.1.31 05:30 Dali

When I got up, Mom had already cooked sweet rice wine eggs in the kitchen. I had mentioned yesterday that I wanted to eat it. In the past, when celebrating the New Year in our hometown, every household would make sweet rice wine. Sweet rice wine boiled with eggs, adding cut pieces of glutinous rice cake, was often eaten as a late-night snack. However, this morning, because we had to catch the high-speed train, everyone quickly swallowed the sweet rice wine and eggs in their own bowls.

Going to the high-speed rail station

Dad was responsible for carrying the big suitcase containing three people's clothes downstairs. Now Dad is no longer young and strong, but his strength is still much greater than mine. I want to remember this moment, his strength, as it is now.

My sister wore a pair of camouflage cargo pants that dragged on the floor. She carried a black hard leather shoulder bag, which contained her cosmetics and a comb. She once described to me the capacity of this leather bag: when she secretly used her living expenses to travel to South Korea, all her luggage was packed in it. My sister just entered university, majoring in Korean, and her fashion style is also Korean style. When asked if she liked Korea after going there, her answer was "just so so."

Mom carried moss she had dug from Cangshan Mountain. I taught her to make a moss terrarium, and she liked it very much. Going down the stairs, passing the landlord sister's "succulent garden," Mom wanted to steal one, and I didn't stop her. After she tried to pry it out with her fingers for half a minute but failed, I said, "Maybe forget it?"

At this time, the sky showed no signs of brightening at all, very much like the day we arrived. It felt like a parallel world, where arrival and departure seemed to happen at the same moment.

When I decided to drive my parents to Dali, I was hesitant. I didn't want to invite this trouble. But they wanted to come, and it would be heartless to refuse directly. Out of moral obligation, I agreed.

From Huaihua to Dali, we stayed together in the van for 17 hours. My dad and I took turns driving. Because Dad's driving skills weren't as good as mine, and as the only male among three women, he was in a disadvantaged position, he was teased all the way. But he has a good temper and rarely refuted. A person's strengths and weaknesses always coexist. Mom originally took Dad's good temper as one of the reasons to be with him. Later, because Dad's temper was too good and he couldn't handle complex family relationships, she also considered it one of his shortcomings.

Mom hardly slept during the whole trip, like a little girl going on her first long journey, looking at this and that. When there was really nothing to look at, she looked at the road signs and sometimes asked me things like "How do you pronounce that character?" She also said, "I like riding in this car. The windows are bright and clear, and I don't get carsick."

When we stopped to rest at a service area, for a moment I thought: What if I bought a bigger car, took them on trips, and played house together?

After driving almost 700 kilometers, we passed a hillside planted with solar panels. The setting sun mixed with cold air reflected on the solar panels, making them look like a snowy mountain.

When we reached the G56 expressway and the navigation showed that Dali was straight ahead, it started to snow, and a sense of unreality washed over us. It felt as if after midnight, the van was no longer a van, and we were no longer human. We were glad to arrive in Dali at 3 a.m. as non-humans, rather than at 3 p.m. as humans.

Without human identities, Mom and Dad no longer needed to cook the New Year's Eve dinner, be a good son, or be a good daughter-in-law. In previous years, I always fled alone. This year, we were willfully escaping together.

How wonderful.

Dad driving:

Mom asked me to take a photo of the mushrooms in He Chen's hands

Mom making a snowman and the snowman she made

Roasting mushrooms at home, the mushrooms bubbling.

An after-dinner walk

Photos