Honesty in the Busy Farming Season: Trading Love and Loyalty for Furniture (Part 6)

Because the workplace, Dawang Vegetable Shop, moved, Xiaobao and I also moved to Pinghe Village in Shoufeng, and it has been more than half a year.

The old bungalow was empty, so we grew crops in exchange for furniture, calling on friends to bring their secondhand furniture to our home.

Furniture first, then everything settled, and only afterward did we plant sweet potatoes, corn, and peanuts.

Someone asked: "Won't you owe a lot of people favors?" I said:"We can give them sweet potatoes!"

What we owe, we repay with dreams.

Now, Xiaobao is mostly out in the fields; I have begun writing field notes from time to time, to repay these friends who gifted us furniture.

[Six]

Back then we were still living at Peixin's place in Ji'an. The house had a yard, and the yard was fenced in, a place for three dogs to run and play. There was still some soil along the side by the railing, and you would squat there and plant whatever you wanted to plant.

You do not like to talk, and your direct actions were my standard for observing you. Around such a small yard, you would silently plant a row of corn, imagining that when a car entered the gate there would be rows of corn swaying. None of us noticed, and only after the corn sprouted, grew, and flowered did our housemates learn about it one by one, and they were delighted.

That was how you looked when you first started planting. Developing your own likes on a little patch of land. You began to take an interest in food, wanting to plant everything, drying every kind of seed. You planted red beans and cabbage in front of the door; you planted rice in a tiny porcelain pot, kept planting records, read vegetable-growing books, got to know a group of friends who wanted to farm... Your head was full of a mad desire to plant, and you muttered about their safety: "My cabbage is being attacked by bugs!" "Will the birds eat all the wheat?"... I went from being dumbfounded to being full of interest, until I would no longer be surprised no matter what dried seeds were placed on the shoe cabinet or windowsill. Just like that, in Hualien, you worked and learned at Weiwan Tian Soy Milk, Dawang Vegetable Shop, and Photosynthesis Farm, planting with great enthusiasm.

Even now, I still think of the first time you got up from beside me at three in the morning, almost without any hesitation. That figure quietly closing the door and leaving.

The first time, it was to go to Photosynthesis Farm to help Brother Wu bake bread. You did not lie in bed, you obediently went to sleep early. That was a kind of initiative, and I could feel it. I lay in bed, knowing that you were riding the Wild Wolf alone in the deep night, from Ji'an to Shoufeng.

I wondered what drove you to leave the house at three in the morning full of expectation, going with such enthusiasm to help Brother Wu bake bread, and the next morning go with them to set up a stall at the Good Market.

I went to the Good Market to find you, wanting to know what made you unafraid of hardship and fatigue. I was surprised to find you standing at ease inside the stall, earnestly explaining to customers that this was Taigeng No. 16 rice, that was Kaohsiung No. 145 rice, what difference there was in taste between brown rice and germ rice... I stood to one side, watching you speak eloquently to people, unable to believe it.

It must have been because you held tremendous passion for what you were doing. I often miss the us of that time. It was as if we had switched places. Most of the time it was you who were used to me speaking eloquently to others, no matter the occasion. Because in the stage of life when we understood each other, there were few moments when you shone so brightly.

Now, you are willing to get up at two in the morning, because you need to knead dough; now, you are willing to be in the fields at five in the morning, because you need to do the work.

But it is impossible for us to keep "tremendous passion" fresh forever. Even though we want to, it is too hard, and it goes against nature and the reality of how people and things develop.

While the weeds grew thick together, the peanuts had finally ripened and were ready to be pulled, and the corn had grown too fast and needed to be picked... Unfortunately, the seedlings planted earlier at the Agroecology School had also formed ears. You and Xiaoying harvested the rice by hand, and you threshed alone in the backyard, your mind still on the peanuts and corn in the fields, and the dough inside the house that had not yet been baked.

How to live calmly and at ease became the major question we faced that summer.

I began to learn not to say anymore that golden rice ears are beautiful, even though the first time you brought rice back from the field, bundle after bundle dried outside the house, the morning sun rose, and under the blue sky, the green rice stalks were all strung with golden ears of rice. It really was beautiful. Like a tourist, I squatted on the ground taking photo after photo, marveling at the heaven-made union of laborers and nature.