"Old seasons in Nhan Van"

The new windy season has arrived on the streets. The delicate and graceful movements envelop the young soul that is bustling before the hesitant handshake between the tiny drops of spring rain and the sunshine and wind of March. Each step is a memory, a lingering feeling, perhaps I will put it in the secret drawer of the old season. Because the old season, there will be no need for a secretary to faithfully and meticulously record the tributaries of life.

Talking about one of those tributaries, I would like to borrow a lyric from the late musician Van Cao in the song “The First Spring”: “The normal season, the happy season has now returned”. Just that much is enough to personally pick up a pen and sketch a few simple pencil strokes of a picture of the years wandering around Hanoi, under the pretty little school. It is still the years of hard work in the lecture hall, studying with respected teachers, having fun with friends from many regions who came to Hanoi to study, which perhaps any student has the opportunity to experience. But for me, deep down those “normal seasons” are the result of the not-so-random continuation of many other seasons: farewell season, exam season, school start season, and perhaps there are many other skies left after leaving the “normal seasons”. Therefore, like a bird longing for freedom, it is time to let go of the narrowness of its heart and mind, I see "the season of joy has come" in the joyful memories of the early days at Nhan Van.

The day I chose the turn to enter the school, the sky was cloudless. The early morning sun was golden. The sun seemed to sprinkle honey on the roads. My heart suddenly felt elated because I suddenly remembered the fragrant smell of rice in May in my nostrils, intertwined with the summer sky at my grandmother's house. A memory arose in excitement and deep gratitude. Having the smell of ripe rice felt by the sense of smell that is familiar with the countryside, the salty taste of the refined fish sauce mixed with the sticky rice that filled my stomach in the early morning, my spirit seemed strong enough to be able to start the new challenge for the race ahead. Just waiting to touch the exam paper, rustling in the fresh summer air, then everything would be swept away by the flow of emotions and thoughts, to wholeheartedly devote myself to everything I wrote. In the pages I wrote that day, the image of my homeland merged with Nguyen Khoa Diem's ​​"country", with deep feelings about a peaceful land. Perhaps the place where I entrust my heart and youthful enthusiasm in the upcoming stage of life also contains the people of the "country", of the fresh and passionate homeland.

In the vagueness of the old seasons, I always remember the first autumn at school. A light and gentle but deep and bold mark. I, at that time, was a student, quietly entering the gate of the university that when I was young, I used to vaguely call it "big-letter university". The ancient autumn days, a bit old and filled with the scent of grass leaves. I imagined myself listening to autumn. Falling on the steps, pattering. Drop by drop, condensing on the long electric wires, like a train wandering north to south and then stopping at the deserted stations. The streets suddenly seemed far away. People's hearts were also far away. The schoolyard was quiet in the late afternoon. A strange feeling of peace. The peace did not make people feel restless right after that because of the nostalgia for a desolate land drifting closer to the moment of reality, but was the envelopment, in a space close enough and warm, wrapping the whole childhood in the corners of the yard, stained with moss like the roof of a house that had been attached for more than ten years. There were times when I found myself finding a place to hide and observe the linear flow of life right before me.

Then the old seasons come back. Clear. Sweet. The ferryman and autumn, I seem to feel something suggestive with this image. Perhaps it comes out of a literary work. Or is the image of the ferryman a respected teacher? If so, that noble calling has chosen for them a poetic start, when the ferryman of knowledge waves the first oars into the early autumn weather. I secretly think that people are also a bit of autumn crystallized in it, then my dear ferryman is a warm autumn, a vibrant autumn, an enthusiastic autumn. A little more autumn, I always keep in my memory. It is a gentle autumn, feminine and passionate like a stove fire. That autumn I wanted to choose as a gift, like the elegant green rice flakes of Vong village in Thach Lam’s writings, to give to my teachers, who were “not in a hurry”, leisurely and little by little, instructing me like a small student still clumsy and lacking. If I could be an autumn, I would like to be an autumn without a season. That autumn will forever retain the image of the distant and brilliant years.

My old seasonal ferry has passed through the tributaries of the river of time, has immersed itself in the changing four seasons, and in the blink of an eye, another journey has begun. The image of my ferry, my school, as a verse by poet Che Lan Vien wrote:

"When we live, it is just a place to live.

When we walk, the earth suddenly becomes the soul.

Let's talk about the old season again. Actually, in the four seasons of heaven and earth, there is no season called the old season, but I still like to call it that. The old season is what passes and repeats itself with the same gratitude as when it happened, is the drawer that stores all the good things but is fragile, afraid that when encountering an unexpected event, it will shatter into pieces and then, without notice, fall sporadically like grains of memory dust on the next stages of life. The old season is also the sadness of the restless worries of youth, of vague worries and sweet thoughts that have not yet tasted sour and spicy. Above all, when the season has passed, everything changes, like the continuation of autumn through summer, only the old season contains the ups and downs of sadness and joy with the wish to keep the sweet memories intact and cherish the things that have passed.

Is the old season also a kind of “waste of memory”? There we are intoxicated with the delicate taste of wine that has been “distilled for many years, covered with the dust of time”, rich with the flavor of cheese from cow’s milk, light with the taste of rustic straw mushrooms… All are gifts of nature, processed from extremely simple steps but requiring careful attention to every detail. Like the way we still nibble or enjoy the taste of the old season that has passed, even though we know that sometimes it is just “crushed” or “rotten”. No matter what, the old season is still a treasure for us to hold on to and walk on the steps of the journey to discover the island of life. Therefore, old things, although not as attractive as new ones, sometimes struggle to escape from their waste shell and put on a green coat to accompany us so that the self is no longer alone.

The last days at Nhan Van. I felt myself slowing down. Every movement of my feet seemed slower. Perhaps to take in the unique marks that only exist here, at least in my small eyes. A bunch of sun-flowers hanging on the balcony of the 6th floor of Building E, a row of Lagerstroemia trees stubbornly waiting for the last rains of May to bloom, a pair of phoenix trees that had long since passed away faintly in the days when Building M had not yet been rebuilt... Another season of Su flowers has passed. Flowers have fallen in the school yard, branches have left a few sparse flowers. The morning dew weaves into patches as if weaving into the shoulders of someone's wistful shirt.

The seasons of memories are walking in me.