儿时的空间

文章来源：俞孔坚. 儿时的空间[J].景观设计学, 2012(2):22-25.

每当读到鲁迅先生的《从百草园到三味书屋》，便想起我儿时的活动空间，想起我家的院子。那曾是我最爱去的地方。院子不足半亩地，可那时觉得好大。院子的围墙仅高过头顶，是泥土夯成的，里面掺杂各种砖石瓦片，还有发白的贝壳，我常常将其抠出来玩耍。院墙顶部用稻草覆盖，再压上些土，来保护墙体不受雨淋，上面总有各种野草生长，那便是人们常说的“墙头草”吧。最喜欢下雪后的墙头，积着白雪，雪水顺稻草流下，每到晚上就结成长长的冰凌，早上起来，用树枝勾下来当“冰糖”吃。其中的东院墙上长满常绿的薜荔——大人们称之为木莲藤——郁郁葱葱的。每当晴天的早上，特别是冬春时节，东院墙外常常是邻居们早餐聚集的场所，老老少少端着大碗的白粥或玉米糊糊，不约而同从各自的家门出来会聚到这里，或蹲或站，边聊天边呼呼着响地吸着碗里的稀粥，偶尔咬一口白色的腌萝卜，然后就是海阔天空地聊。我所知的天下大事和关于村里的小事，还有历史上的故事，有许多是从那里知道的。后来，人民公社解体，村民都分田单干了，邻居们的作息时间也就不一样了，便再也没有看到邻居们在哪里聚首了，而我也长大了。

院子分成南北两片，南片比北片高约30cm，由一个条形河卵石砌成的陡坎分开，虽然只是微弱的高差变化，却是两个完全不同的世界。高台上种的是荨麻，长得密密麻麻，里面常有蟾蜍和蛇出没，对我来说是片禁地，只有当秋天收获完才敢进入。那时，妈妈已剥下麻杆上的纤维，拿去做成麻绳，地里则留下一片洁白的麻杆芯。每到此时，我便兴奋不已，现在想起来，更觉那是一种艺术装置。采下的麻杆芯可做成各种玩具，最常做的玩具是将上下拉锯运动转变为旋转力的钻子。北片的平地则布满了菜畦，种满各种蔬菜，只留几条狭窄的排水沟，兼作耕作通道。各色蔬菜四季轮作，父亲从来不会让一寸土地撂荒。四季变幻的各种绿色，间或偶尔出现的嫩黄色的芥菜花、白色的韭菜花、橘黄色的金针花，晴日里，蜂蝶翩飞。蔬菜长起来很快，自己家吃不完，就送给邻居，每逢十、五赶集日，父亲会把最鲜美的菜拿去卖。原来土地可以这样丰产而美丽！

木莲的果很像无花果，青绿色，却不能吃，摘下时伤口处会流出白乳汁，黏黏的，可以将手指粘在一起；海绵一样的外壳，掰开，里面是个空腔，腔壁上有无数紫粉色的小点点，好奇怪。后来在大学的植物学课上才知道那叫“隐头花序”，那木莲果叫“隐头果”。最难忘的便是那木莲藤蔓的深处的枯枝上栖息着一种虫子，居住在一种桶状的房子里，将枯枝和“房子”连带那里面的虫子一起摘下，小飞虫便会跟着房子飞出来又钻进去，旁若无人，非常有趣，那画面至今仍清晰地留在我脑中。在这院子里类似这样的关于生物的奇妙之处还有许多，迷人的困惑一直到大学才得到解答，明 白后却便觉索然无味了。

院子里面有个小池塘，实际上是个小水坑，四方形，约两米见方。很奇怪的是，那池塘四季不枯不溢，下雨时，院子里的水会往里面排；干旱天需要用水浇地时，源源不断的水就会从石缝中流出。里面还栖息着一条大黄鳝，它总在石缝中躲藏。夏天时，我常常在小水坑边流连，蹲在池边看水里的天空倒影和小鱼在石块间来回穿梭。黄鳝最有意思，只 要你屏住呼气，静静呆上一段时间，它那金黄色带有黑斑的头便会慢慢从石缝中探出，察觉没有动静之后，会慢慢把身子也伸出来，当突然发现有人时，便急速将头缩回洞中。妈妈说，那黄鳝已经成精了，我常常有些害怕。终于有一天，早知水池有条大黄鳝的堂兄拿了个铁钩子，上面挂了条蚯蚓，将黄鳝从石缝中引出来，上钩后便从石缝中把它使劲拖出 来，宰杀了，炒了吃掉了。我因此悲伤了好久，那可怖的景象还常出现在梦魇中。

小水坑的边上有棵棕榈树，那时觉得好高。每年初春时节父亲都会来剥一次棕皮，积攒起来做蓑衣。每割一次，便觉那棕榈树又长高了许多，嫩白的树干便暴露出来，一环一环的，像小孩脖子上的颈纹。但从来不见树干变粗，我非常好奇。后来直到大学时才知道，是因为单子叶植物的缘故。我最喜棕榈树的花，春夏之际，会像小手一样从棕皮里吃力地挤出来，还戴着淡黄色的“手套”。没等花序展开时就把它掰下来，撕掉其外套，里面是嫩黄色的小米一样的颗粒，被紧紧挤压在一起，是玩打仗时最好的“子弹”。每当看到棕榈花从棕皮中初露，就会很兴奋，迫不及待地要抢在邻居孩子之前把它抢到手。于是，便学会了爬树。而棕榈树是最不好爬的，裤子撕破是肯定的，还常常搞得皮开肉绽，接下来就是母亲严厉的教训。尽管如此，我总是克制不了自己。童年便在这样无尽的纠结——众多的禁忌和追求快乐的无限欲望中——悄然渡过了。

后来，院子被盖成了三间瓦房，家里宽敞了，我也不再需要和爸爸同睡一张床了。而伴我成长、给我带来无限乐趣和回忆的院子也从此消失了！值得庆幸的是，我关于儿童空间的理解并没有因此消失：好奇而探索，幼稚而学习，交流与静处，敬畏与热爱，禁忌与追求……种种人类的天性在此彰显、纠结而共存，重演着人类系统进化的惊险与神奇，开启着个体发育和发展的漫漫历程。我庆幸曾经有个这样的儿时活动空间。

My Childhood Space

Every time I read Mr. Lu Xun’s article From Baicao Garden to Sanwei Private School I would think of the places where I spent my childhood. The courtyard of our old house was my favorite place. The courtyard was only some 300 square meters, but I found it immense at the time. The surrounding walls were higher than me, made of rammed earth with bricks, stones, tiles and even white shells that I often dug out and played with. The top of the walls were covered by straws that had been secured by some earth to protect it from the rains. Wild weeds grew up there — I guessed that they were probably what people called “fence-sitters.” I liked it most when it snowed. Flakes accumulated on top of the walls, and the melted snow would flow down along the straws, freezing into ice in the evening. In the morning after I got up, I would knock them down with a twig and eat them as if they were sugar candy. The wall on the east was covered with evergreen climbing figs, or “manglietia” as the grownups might have called them. On sunny mornings, particularly in winter and spring, my neighbors, young and old, would bring their breakfast of rice congee or corn paste, and gather outside the eastern wall, squatting or standing, chatting while sipping their liquid meal in the bowls. Once in a while, someone might bite the pickled radish with a crisp sound. People talked about everything there. I got to know the world events, village happenings and historical stories largely from them. Afterward, as people’s commune dissolved, villagers got their plots of lands and worked separately. With different work schedules, such morning gatherings would not be seen again. Meanwhile, I was growing up.

The courtyard was divided by a gravel slope into two parts, with the southern half 30 centimeters higher than the northern side. The height difference might not be significant, but it separated two completely different worlds. The highland was used to plant flax. The field was so dense that toads and snakes could often be seen there, and thus a forbidden area for me until autumn, after the flax had been harvested. My mother would rip off the fibers from the stalks to make ropes, leaving behind the white part of piths on the field. At the sight of this, I would get excited. Recalling them now, I think they were more like an art installation. The piths could be used to make all kinds of toys; often we made these spinning spears that would whirl when pushed up and down. The flat land in the north was turned into furrows of vegetables, with only a few of narrow ditches that also served as access. Different kinds of vegetables were alternate according to the seasons; my father would never leave any inch of land idle. As seasons changed, the land was awash with different hues of green, but occasionally there might also be yellow mustard flowers, white flowers of garlic chives, and orange lily flowers… on sunny days, bees would buzz around, and butterflies would flutter by. The vegetables grew so fast we had to share the surplus with our neighbors. Every five days there would be a market, and my father would pick the best produce to sell at the fair. You see, the land could be so abundant and beautiful!

The fruits of manglietia looked like figs, light green in color but not edible. If you picked them off, a milky juice would ooze from the cut, and it was so sticky your fingers would be glued together. If you broke the sponge-like shell, you would find numerous tiny balls, pinky purple, on the wall of the empty cavity. I found it so weird and wonderful when I was a kid. It was only after I went to college that I learned that these balls were called “hypanthium”, and the fruit of manglietia was a kind of “syconium.” The most unforgettable thing was the insect living in a bucket-shaped nest on the branch deep in the vines of the manglietia. If you removed the branch together with the nest, the winged insect would follow its “house” buzzing in and out as no one was around. This fascinating image has remained clearly in my mind, even now. There were many more similar wonders discovered in that courtyard. These mysteries and puzzles intrigued me until I went to college.

In the courtyard there was a small pond. Actually, it was just a small rectangle pit, its surface area only about two square meters. The strange thing was that, it never dried up nor overflowed. When it rained, water discharged into the pit; while when there was a drought, water would flow out from the joints of stones. There used to be a big finless eel hiding among the stones. In summertime, I would walk around, or squat by the pond, looking at the reflection of the sky in the water or the small fishes swimming between the stones. The eel was the most interesting one. If you held your breath and stayed still for a period of time, its gold and black-specked head would start poking out slowly from between the stones. If it felt safe, it would stick out its neck also, again slowly. But if it found someone nearby, it would retreat into its hole rapidly. My mother said the eel might have become a demon, so I felt a little bit frightened sometimes. One day my cousin, who had long known about the eel, lured it out of the hole with a bait of an earthworm, caught it on the hook, killed it, cooked it and then ate it. I was sad about its death for quite a long time, during which I often saw the horrible scene in my dreams.

Nearby the water pit stood a palm tree which, at that time, looked so tall to me. At the beginning of each spring, my father would cut off the skins of the palm and made a raincoat. Once peeled off, the palm appeared to be taller, exposing the tender white trunk with circles like the wrinkles on the neck of a baby. But I was very curious why the trunk never got thicker. When I was at college, I learnt that the palms were monocotyledon. I loved the flowers of the palm most. When spring turns into summer, they would squeeze out of the sheath, bursting out like small hands in jasmine-colored “gloves”. Before the flowers unfold, we would tear off the “gloves” to find the yellowish millet-shaped beads suppressed in the pod. They made the best “bullets” for our games. So every time when I saw the palm flowers were getting out of their sheaths, I would get excited, anxious to secure the weapon before the other kids. For this purpose, I learned to climb a tree, and palms were among the most difficult ones to climb. My pants would sure get torn, so did my skin and flesh sometimes. A severe reprimand would follow from my mother. But I just could not stop it. My childhood passed quickly in this manner, in an endless battle between that which is forbidden and exhilarating.

Eventually, a three-storied tile-roofed house was built in the courtyard. Our house became so spacious, and I did not need to share my father’s bed any more. However, the courtyard, where I spent my childhood and which brought me so much fun and so many memories, was gone forever! Fortunately, my understanding of the child’s realm did not disappear: curiosity and exploration, naivety and learning, interaction and solitude, awe and passion, forbidden and pursuing… human natures revealed themselves here, allowing one to mature in time, and as a space to enact each one’s mysterious and thrilling journey to adulthood. I am grateful I had such an activity space in my childhood.