I forgot how we got to the Shi Men Cave. I had not gone to the elementary school yet. I was little then, and mother held my hand, passing the beach. The water on the lagoons was transparent, and I spotted a few sea stars lying still by the rocks.
“Mother, look! Tiny sea creatures!”
“Sea stars!”
I touched their bodies, and said, “They can not move.”
“Put them back to the ocean, then they could swim again.”
Two sea stars were floating in the water, as if they were travelling in the vacummed air space. I had thought they might be like little stars, sparkling in the reflected sunshine; but they were powerlessly beated by the waves and currents, like two small flower petals, drifting towards the outer sea. I wanted to grab them back,but mother held my hands and put me on her bosoms. I remembered her face; her lipstiks was purple, and the sun shed on our faces; when I looked back at the sea again, the sea stars had disappeared.
Maybe the sea stars had sunken into the sea bottom quietly where the sunshine could not reach the sea weeds, or perhaps they had become two birds, with their white wings, flying over the Shi Men village, passing the Shimen Harbor and diligent fishermen, flying towards a place that genuinely belonged to them.
We sat under the pavillion on the beach. The win blew from the ocean, with the flavor of oysters. Mother’s face was small and white, bearing slight fragrance. She said, “Would you like some oranges?”I nodded. Mother took an orange from her back. Her hands were slim, with a few wrinkles on the back. The sour taste of the orange slices. The trees rustled against the bushes, and the sun fell on our faces. My mother took out her handkerchief and wiped off the sweat from my face.
Memories had no promises. Sometimes, we want try our best to remember one’s voice; however, even though we try to the extent of losing our energy, we can not recognize the subtantial quality of that voice.
Thus, the voice has become wind, become currents and lights, leaving those natural and beautiful empty spcace for us, to fill out.
In the windy afternoon, we passed the venders who sold shaved ice. A few men were fixing their fishing nets under the bushes and finally we arrived at a vast beach. At the entrance of the beach, an old man was selling soda and roasted saussages. People were setting off firecrackers while some were playing paper cards. It seemed to be a wintry day, the ocean was gray, with mists afar from the shore.
Many people were flying kites on the beach. The kites flew high and low, with their owners pulling the therads. The kites flew in the high sky. Mother’s hands. And the wind blew our hair.
A man cried not far away from us. A group of people began running towards the sea, in the direction where the kite dropped. Some jumpped into the sea, trying to saving the kite,or maybe one person was drowned? They all ran towards where the sun set. Sea gulls were frightened, flying over in groups heading towards the village.
“Mother, a kite dropped.”
“Adults are going to save the kite.”
“Mother, I am afraid it will drop into the sea.”
“Don’t be afraid. It won’t.”
We sat on the beach watching the fishermen sailing their boats towards the sunset. The beach was full of foot step and puzzled traces. No one wore smiles, as if there were also the kites and suns dropping into the ocean, even the echos spinning out the spacious cring of the currents.
Far away, some were lighting sparkling fairy sticks. They made ciercles, encirling the fairy lights, as the waves pounded hard on the seashore of Shimen
Mother stood at the end of the beach. She pot on the hemlet and put me at the front of the baby seat on the motorbike. She stoke hard to ignite the bike, then the engine started running, covering up all the waves and light voices of the people in the dark.
“Read, and go,”my mother said. Her voice is a vast voice of the cean. We left the Shimen village as the motorbike’s light shed on the vegetable yards in the dark. The light bounced up and down through cemeteries and military baracks in the dark,and I seemed to hear mother singing, in the wind and the light fading off, “Do not be afraid because we are brave in the river, in the river.”
There is a beach, with the wind blowing off many memories. I seem to see the beach of Shimen where the kite flyings were chasing the dropped sky and my mother standing their at dusk, her purple lipsticks and purple scarf. I can not recognize her voice. Shapeless.
“The wind is so comfortable.” “I hope it is like this. Everyday. I can come to the beach with Mother,” I said.
In those days when we had not suffered from pain, we were blue smoke from the paddy fields. Watching from the beach, we saw that the smoke was rolling out from the horizen, and the direction would not change. The smoke went straight, always, without any doubt. Even the wind blew over, the blue smoke alaways stayed firm, belieing at the end of the sky, someone would spot the signal, making sure that person was save, was happy, was remembering each other.
When my mother was drifitng away like a swif of blue smoke, I was awaken from my sleep. I could not have time. I did not have time to accompany her and tell her, do not be afraid in the river.
That day, I drove from Danshui to Keelong, and far away, I saw a few boats floating off the beach of the Shi Men Cave. The childhood memories of holding my mother’s hands on the beach surged like the waves. The memories are like blue smoke, very light, but they go straight, without changing their directions: sea stars, kites, fairy sticks, and the light of my mother’s motorbike on the zigzagging northern coast.
Memory is the way that my mother gave me as blessings. She stands on the beach, with a black umbrella. She says, don’t get wet, do not get drowned. I tell her, “I see those sea stars.” She says, “I see them too, and they are swimming with us now.”
“How about the kites?”
“They are flying with us too in the high sky.”
“Will they fall into the ocean?”
“Do not be afraid any more. They will not fall anymore.”
The kites fly in the sky. If I could attach a paper slit, the paper slit with climb along the kite’s thread towards the end of the sky, and when it hits the sky, you will certainly know what my wish is.
I will like to go back to the Shimen Beach, and I will walk with you along the long beach. I will remember clearly your voice. I will say what I did not say to you.