Memories of the Three-Tiered Steps, Already Marked by Change and Loss (Essay)
The old house always had three steps leading up to the doorway; from these three steps, you reached the entrance, and from them, you descended into the earth; from the land.
When I was young, I often fell down these three steps, and after falling, I would kick them a few times, as if to vent my frustration. This was likely a common trick for young children, as it caused me to fall.
As I grew older, I learned to be more careful when passing these three steps, although I no longer fell. However, I found them inconvenient, and often wondered why the house had these steps instead of being built directly on the ground.
Later, as I grew older, I stopped paying attention to the three steps, and sometimes even stepped over them for convenience.
Many years later, when I returned home, I saw the old house still standing, and along the path to it, the entrance. The door was framed by a wild, overgrown area, with no footprints in the white snow. A rusty padlock stood alone guarding the door.
We didn't enter, standing outside and gazing in. We remembered how clean and warm the area in front of the door had once been. When I was young, there was a vegetable garden on the ground, where my mother grew cabbage, radishes, spinach, and various other vegetables, and she also planted garlic and other plants along the edges. In the summer, it was a lush green, and in the autumn, it was full of colorful flowers, so beautiful to behold.
Now, the area in front of the door is overgrown with weeds that are over six feet tall, and the path is completely buried by the weeds, blocking even people from entering, making it seem so aged and desolate.
The brick house was dilapidated, with some bricks falling down and into the eaves and gutters. Perhaps the scenes of the past are already gone, but the three steps remained, constructed of blue stone, and they were covered in moss.
Memories are like water in the palm of your hand; no matter whether you spread them out or hold them tightly, they will eventually drip away through your fingers.
Although I no longer have the joy of my youth, seeing these things that I once had in my childhood fills me with melancholy.
I once heard that memories are a bridge, but they are also a prison for loneliness. Now it seems that the three steps are indeed a bridge, a bridge to childhood memories.
