The village seems to be located at the edge of the sea.
A few stretching pine trees hold up the sky. Under the trees wavers a bush of mimosas. In front of the bushes, the sea surges, with its pounding currents, but the sea is as blue as a dream, and the sun sheds into my eyes. The sun sets afar, hidden in a mysterious space, where light indigo shades layers of shinning spots, escalating the threshing waves, rolling up the seeming subtropical dreams and curling the reality into the small village harbor. As the waves rush against the rocks outside the decks, the previous persistence has disappeared; thus, its softness falls upon my golden silhouette.
Behind the indigo, a fishing boat is moored in the small harbor. I get into the village, and a few elderly men are sitting under the bamboo stipes where silk melons grope their ways with curly vines outside the grocery store. The sunset is abundant in the yard, and I enter the ancient store to buy a bottle of green tea. The old men ingeniously do not look at me. They fan the paper fans or whip the flies that have been climbing still on the small table. The pounding sound of the surging waves outside seems to be softened to accompany the oldness with the tree shadows rustling in a desire of wanting to strike a conversation.
A part of the village is damp. Even if the sun has exposed its power on the wall, a vast of green ferns politely stand on the eaves, under the window sills, on the thresholds, and on the cracks of the plaza in front of the old house. When the shadow passes, a flavor of winter drifts by， crossing the fishing net which is hung dry by the window with a few pieces of humble clothes. Morning glories cover the pillars of the house, and when peeing into the window, a few children are watching television in the semi-darkness with their dog lying beside.
“Are you still selling fried noodles?” I ask a young girl.
She nods, beckoning her mother to come to talk with me.
Sitting on the chair, I can still see the vast blue of the ocean, being covered by the sound of the sea howling.
I am having noodle as the woman approaches with a bowl of soup. “The fish was freshly caught by 6my husband this morning.”
In the small noodle shop, many pots of orchids are hung on the wall. The sun filters through the path falling on my hand, and a lizard is not afraid of the sun, waiting quietly behind the porky leaves of the orchids.
“Didn’t you go to the sea troughs?” the woman says.
I answers the wind is too strong.
I remember that is the last day of the year. We were walking near the beach waiting for the year to end. Far away, people lit candles and some were setting off fireworks. Then we lie on the fields and fell into sleep, until the dawn gradually appeared on the eastern part of the sky, and we woke up in the frozen air, hurriedly watching towards the east, and the sun broke through the black clouds, appearing on the surface of the sea.
And right now, the light of the sunset is shedding on the young girl and her mother’s faces, falling on the old men’s chairs, floating like the waves on the children and the fishermen’s hair, on their dog and orchids, their boats and fishing nets.
The sun falls on the quiet sea.
Lao Mei village is now being captured by the falling blue and the night wind is not lenient, blowing towards the temple gods’ faces and the red blessing papers whisper and spin and hiss as if loyal jesters in the fate of this dimension of time and place.
On the days of travelling, memories can be easy, and the winter days are not cold, are very distant, distant from the cold and solitary path.
When I walk to the exit of the Lao Mei village, the old men are all gone.
Now, there is only sea.
The sea threshes its sound, pounding in the dark village, with a few lamps popped up as if waiting for their owners to come back to the familiar place.
A road, zigzagging along the coast and rocks, will take me up to Shi Men, Ye Liu, and Keelong.
A road, winding along the mountains and poplars, will take me through Danshui, Guan Du, Shi Lin, and Taipei.
There is only a road in my heart, that takes me to many parts of the world, and now is heading to my home.
Deep at night, I leave the village of Lao Mei, walk on the path.
I open the door. My home is there. No one is inside. I enter the house, and the hot spring is there waiting in the depth of my heart. The spring flows from the ancient, telling me many stories, and finally says to me, “Welcome home, my master.”
I dip myself in the hot flow of the curing liquid, and I am with the flow of the water despite of the sound of the wind and the sea, surging from all directions of my existence.
I walk with you, under the moon, in that familiar place: Italy, France, Andalucia, Nizza, Montana, Minnesota…
And now, we are walking outside of the Lao Mao village. The moon light is so bright, and I know this is not a dream, at the edge of the sea.