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The end of the year and the feelings of a child far away from home

Princess Tang January 21, 2025 11:04

In the city at the end of the year, the monsoon winds blow fiercely, making the days colder, and the hearts of people far from home like me feel more restless.

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At the end of the year, children living far away from home all want to return home to reunite.

Every year-end, the cold wind comes back. It is still the same bitter cold, but I feel it is different every year. And when the new wind season comes, I feel nostalgic for the old wind season. That feeling is hard to name, both gentle and passionate. Like missing a lover's promise, missing a fragrant kiss, a flirtatious look, so that the night brings endless love and longing.

The end of the year wind season, why does time seem to pass so quickly, even though a day still takes the same amount of time. I remember the time when I was still in the countryside, every time the end of the year wind came, my mother was always in a hurry. Remembering my mother is remembering her thin figure, one tall and one short, often waking up very early to race against time. My mother with a mountain of work, named and unnamed work.

I remember the early morning smoke rising from the kitchen, the smell of boiled potatoes, boiled cassava, the bowl of fried cold rice with fragrant pork fat that my mother had roasted while I was still in a deep sleep.

I remember the times when my mother stood on the porch and complained that I didn’t want to wear more warm clothes or scarves because the wind at the end of the year was usually… poisonous. Her nagging words were always the same, sounding like scolding but filled with endless love.

I remember the times I went to school with my friends on the village road, the heavy wheels when pedaling against the wind. Pressing the pedals and smiling, dreaming of a near Tet. One liked to go to the Tet market to play traditional games, another craved a bowl of hot banh duc in the cold winter, exhaling smoke from his mouth. I dreamed of new clothes and sandals. But my parents couldn’t afford to buy them every Tet.

During the last windy season of the year, I remember the nights lying next to my mother, listening to her sighs, hiding her thoughts. Children are carefree and innocent, but for adults, Tet is a “burden”, an invisible fear. Mother worries that her children will not have new clothes to wear during Tet, worries that the house does not have enough meat, candy, or jam. Worry about whether the chickens will be sold for a good price during Tet? Then there will be vegetables, firewood…

In the end of the year windy season, thinking about my hometown, I always feel indebted to many favors. From the village road when it was still red dirt until it was poured with clean concrete, it was the place that supported my steps from my first steps until I grew up and went far away. To the rows of eucalyptus trees that are many years old and no one remembers the name, the leaves rustling and falling, the children often pile them up to burn to keep warm. And the familiar corner of the countryside market with so many smells: the plastic smell of rabbit-shaped balloons that every child loved when they were young; the smell of ginger jam, pumpkin jam... someone made early to sell; the smell of river water rising up with a lingering smell of moss; the smell of the simple country people lingering in the brown shirt...

The last days of the year, the wind returns. The rustling winds seem to blow into my homesickness even more intensely. Each gust of wind is an indescribable feeling of longing. It seems like hot tears are about to touch my cheeks. Only then do I realize that my tears have fallen. It’s not because I’m sad, but I feel so lucky to have experienced so many end-of-year wind seasons with so many sweet memories.

Princess Tang
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The end of the year and the feelings of a child far away from home