The COVID-19 pandemic has lasted for more than a year now, so conventional social gatherings have also stopped for more than a year.

In the middle of May, the weather is getting warmer but not hot, and the school spring semester will soon be finished, well-respected Professor W commented about the more than 2-hour long gathering celebrating his retirement as “the most pleasant surprise” this year. These words, the time, and the weather stirred a longing for a gathering among my daughter’s friends, including the retired professors. Everyone was enthusiastic for a recital. Professor A prepared an opening speech for the recital, Professor W will bring his own sound system and saxophone to play, Grace and Shirah practiced together for a piano and vocal piece.

Due to COVID-19, the originally planned indoor recital moved outdoors, in Rachel and Carey’s backyard, and it is called “A Garden Recital”. Rachel invested lots of time and resources on this garden recital by planting many flowers in their backyard. My daughter bought a big tent, as the weather forecast predicted rain on Sunday afternoon. Rachel prepared cheese, fruits salad, and baked cakes ahead of time. She also bought a few 2-Tier or 3-tier cake stand fruit plates.

At noon on Sunday, Alex, Carey and I set up the tent in Rachel and Carey’s backyard. Their four children brought the food, drink, and utensils to the garden and set up the chairs too. Grace and Lou brought their electronic piano from home. Shirah brought home-made self wrapped sweets too. A few of us were busy working from noon to 2:00 pm to stage the backyard for a garden recital of sixteen attendants. This preparation experience helped me realize that the hostess who is hosting a family garden recital is indeed a warm-hearted capable organizer. Thanks Rachel!

The early summer family garden recital was very successful. Professor A’s opening speech was focused on his research area, Grace played the piano, Shirah sang a few Italian and German opera songs, some with Grace playing piano, some just by herself. Rachel and Carey’s twin played the instruments that they will be playing in their school concerts soon. Professor W. brought his own sound system and played a few pieces of music on his saxophone. After the garden recital, we all enjoyed the delicious food prepared by Rachel, chatted about little episodes with keeping social distance during this pandemic, and little stories of family members.

Today, Rachel showed me the new additions to her garden, I learned that a white flower is called bleeding heart and wondered why a white flower got such a blood name. After the recital, Martha and I enjoyed the beautiful flowers in the garden and she pointed to the bleeding heart and commented: “The shape of this flower is like a heart, a small drop of red from the heart shaped flower, so it looks like the heart is bleeding.”

Little Episodes

At the opening of the garden recital, Professor A gave a speech. Rachel and Carey’s children were sitting outside the tent. Here under the tent sat: Maratha, Professor W and his wife, Lou, Alex, my daughter, Grace, Shirah, Carey, Justin, and Rachel.

The chairs in the garden recital:

The food prepared by Rachel:

Rachel was chatting (from left to right):
Shirah, Grace, Rachel, Professor A., Lou, Martha, Professor W. and his wife:

Alex, Rachel, and Lou:

Shirah, Grace, Rachel, and Lou:

Pretty Shirah and Grace with Lou:

Two days later, I found the bleeding heart flower described by Martha:

It was raining in the morning and I took an umbrella out for a walk.

On this cloudy rainy gray day, all the trees still have bare branches, Waltham didn’t seem to have any sign of spring, although the purple and white magnolia flowers in California were already in full bloom, and the canola flowers in my hometown Zigong were now all in golden color.

When I walked across the campus bridge over South Street, I saw a tree full of yellow flowers on the slope at the end of the bridge. The yellow flowers with raindrops were sparkling.

In the rain, I stopped at the end of the bridge. One hand held onto the umbrella, and the other hand held onto my iPhone to take photos of the yellow flowers. I didn’t realize that my holding my umbrella I was getting in the way at the end of the bridge.

A hurrying teacher stopped beside me and waited for me to make way for her to pass.

As I stepped aside, I pointed to the sparkling yellow flowers and said: “Look, the flowers are blooming.”

The teacher turned her head and saw the tree full of yellow flowers and sighed: “Wow, It is so pretty!”

She looked at the yellow flower tree and suggested as she walked away: “If you can photograph the contrast between the dead leaves and the yellow flowers, it would be prettier.”

”Thank you. Have a nice day!” I happily replied.

I stood at the end of the bridge, watching the teachers and students rushing to their classrooms in the rain, enjoying a picture of the traditional “Going to school in the morning” in fine days at a school campus on the East Coast.

In China, “Morning, go to school” is a completely different scenery now. Because of the coronavirus, high schools and universities have begun to teach online; teachers teach and answer questions through video conference at home, and students listen and ask questions through video at home. “Going to school in the morning” means students don’t need to get out of the house or care about the weather anymore in China.

In a very short period of time, this coronavirus has provided a new model for “going to school in the morning”, which shows that the reform of educational methods is not always difficult. (Coronavirus has quickly promoted the online teaching methods that may require long-term evaluation and small-scale testing and reviewing feedback in normal time, to such a great scale : colleges and middle schools across the country. Heroes are rising in difficult times!)

The tree full of yellow flowers on the slope at the end of the bridge:

今天是4月21日。 今年的今天，“21-04-21”的日期格式恰好通用于中式日期（年－月－日）和英式日期（日－月－年），百年一遇。

在美国，年满21的人饮酒和买酒合法了，可以进出酒吧和赌场合法地享受花天酒地了。所以21是跨进成人的门槛，21也隐喻着最年轻成人的风采，以美国的一句潮话为证：“Forever 21（永远21）”

在美国生机勃勃的四月天和在对21突然敏感的半百闲人心里，21-04-21很容易就联想到“21永远21”，平添了怀旧闲情。后中年女人经历着年龄带来的变化：潮热的更年期、衰弱的短记忆、膨胀的腰围、渐白的毛发、不灵的腿脚…… 用“永远21”来调侃，希翼着彼此留住那最年轻的成人风采。

我无意中在Brandeis的校园看到一颗纪念树，纪念一个生命终止在21岁（1991-2012）。

面对一个实现了“永远21（forever 21）”，因为终止在21的早逝生命，我突然体会到对死亡的肃然起敬中真正实现“永远21”也许是一个悲剧，长驻父母和同龄朋友心中。

品尝“永远21”，有甜蜜也有惋惜。

Brandeis校园里的那棵纪念树：

03-25-2021， Thursday， cloudy in the morning, sunny in the afternoon.

The scenery of “spring-welcoming flowers” in my memory is framed as winter jasmine bushes filled with bright yellow-colored flowers. Therefore, in early spring, I often say: “Winter jasmine welcomes the spring.”

In March of 2021, I first time noticed that cornelian blooms ahead of winter jasmine to welcome spring on the East Coast. This surprise brought me great joy, as I really love flowers.

I recognized cornelian trees on 10-25-2020, the Lunar Double Nines Day (lunar calendar September 9th, a holiday similar to the National Grandparents Day in USA in terms of respecting and greeting older family members).

On that day, I was home alone rereading and enjoying the famous Tang poem, “Thoughts on Lunar Double Nines Day” by Tang dynasty poet WangWei (王维) . “One misses loved ones twice as much (倍思亲)” from the poem stimulated my deep longing for my late mother and brought back a hidden story about how I was actually an un-wanted child of my mother before I was born.

“Alone in a faraway place (独在异乡)”, I read WangWei’s poem slowly and tasted the loneliness as I was alone for more than a month now. I knew 茱萸(zhu yu), a plant, was associated with the Lunar Double Nines Day for long time, but I never saw it. I suddenly wanted to know: “What is 茱萸?”, the same as wanting to meet a old friend who I had never truly met before.

I did an online search in both Chinese and English and found the following information:

Cornelian (茱萸) is a tree with yellow flowers and red fruits, which usually grows in cold climates. There is a Chinese saying: “One sees cornelian flowers in the spring, its pretty shapes in the summer, its red fruits in the fall, and white snow on it in the winter.” I had never seen cornelian in warm Sichuan nor sunny California.

The cornelian, in Wang’s poem, referred to its fruits, very pretty with a color like ruby.

In China, wearing cornelian fruits on the Lunar Double Nines Day is similar to wearing artemisia argyi in the Dragon Boat Festival, both are Chinese folk customs that hope wearing those plants close to our body will let the aroma of the plants fight off evil and disease and bring us good fortune.

After seeing cornelian online, I realized that there are lots of carnelian trees on the campus of Brandeis University. Unfortunately, on the Lunar Double Nines Day, the cornelian fruits could not stand up the cold weather and were all gone. Afterwards, I began looking forward to seeing cornelian blooming again.

Silently longing for a flower in the fall and winter seasons is a joyful sweet journey, especially as a flower lover, in the COVID-19 quarantine period.

After waiting for more than five months, I finally saw the famous cornelian blooming again (I saw cornelian blooming last year as a nameless flower, without knowing its name). I was very satisified.

Little Episodes

1.Cornelian
“The cornelian tree grows to 5–12 m tall. The flowers are small (5–10 mm in diameter), with four yellow petals, produced in clusters of 10–25 together before the leaves appear. The fruit is an oblong red drupe 2 cm long and 1.5 cm in diameter, containing a single seed.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornus_mas)

2. In Boston Public Garden, the name-tag of cornelian is “Cornelian Cherry Dogwood，Europe”

The cornelian tree in the photo is across from the famous Cheers Restaurants.

3. The Lunar Double Nines Day Poem, by WangWei
jiǔ yuè jiǔ rì yì shān dōng xiōng dì
《九月九日忆山东兄弟》

dú zài yì xiāng wéi yì kè
独 在 异 乡 为 异 客，
měi féng jiā jié bèi sī qīn
每 逢 佳 节 倍 思 亲。
yáo zhī xiōng dì dēng gāo chù
遥 知 兄 弟 登 高 处，
biàn chā zhū yú shǎo yī rén
遍 插 茱 萸 少 一 人。

4. Artemisia Argyi
” In traditional Chinese medicine, The herb is considered to increase the blood supply to the pelvic region and stimulate menstruation, help treat infertility, dysmenorrhea, asthma and coughs.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_argyi)
The Chinese folk believed that it could fight off evil spirits and attract good fortune. Hanging a bunch of fresh artemisia argyi on the door is one of the customs during the Dragon Boat Festival.

今年我才知道茱萸花先于迎春花迎接着美东的春天。人爱花，花悦人，一种惊喜一点开心。

我留心茱萸始于2020年疫情居家令中的中国传统节日重阳节。出门远行受阻，我在家里重温王维著名的重阳节诗句，文字的感染力慢慢地滋润出缠绵的“倍思亲”。

“独在异乡”，玩味重阳节古诗。王维诗句里的茱萸是茱萸果，其形似枸杞，透红晶莹，有点象红宝石。重阳插茱萸类似端午佩艾草，都是民间风俗用茱萸和艾草特有的香味贴身辟邪除病求吉。虽然我知道茱萸是一种与重阳节有关的植物，但是我从来没有见到过茱萸。我突然想知道“茱萸究竟是什么？”，就像我们想见一位从未谋面的老朋友那一样。

我在网上用中文和英文搜索之后知道，茱萸是一种木本花树，有花也有果，多生长在寒冷的北方。原来Brandeis校园里有好多茱萸树，可惜重阳节那天树上的茱萸果早已被冻掉了。“春赏萸花、夏看影姿、秋观红果、冬品白雪”，所以我在南方的四川和温暖的加州都没有见到过茱萸花。于是，我在麻州Waltham从重阳节开始盼着来年茱萸花开。

秋冬两季，翘首一花，幽幽情长，给索然疫情居家平添几分乐趣。等了五个月，我终于在今年的三月再次见到已知芳名的茱萸花（去年我见到的那是无名黄花）。开心！

小插曲

1. 茱萸花形娇小、花瓣四片、花色金黄。远远看去树枝上的一朵黄花其实是伞型的一簇茱萸小花。

2021年6月14日，端午节，青涩的茱萸果

2. 波士顿公园里的茱萸花的名片：Cornelian Cherry Dogwood，Europe

照片上的茱萸树的马路对面就是的Cheers Bars,《Cheers》电视剧的主场景。

3. 《九月九日忆山东兄弟》
王维（701年—761年）
独在异乡为异客，
每逢佳节倍思亲。
遥知兄弟登高处，
遍插茱萸少一人。

拼音注释：
《jiǔ yuè jiǔ rì yì shān dōng xiōng dì》
dú zài yì xiāng wéi yì kè
měi féng jiā jié bèi sī qīn
yáo zhī xiōng dì dēng gāo chù
biàn chā zhū yú shǎo yī rén

白话文：
一个人远在他乡，
一到过节就想家。
朋友们登高望远，
都插茱萸就缺我。

4. 艾草（https://baike.baidu.com/item/艾/3650277）
“艾（学名：Artemisia argyi Levl. et Van），是菊科、蒿属植物，多年生草本或略成半灌木状，植株有浓烈香气。叶厚纸质，上面被灰白色短柔毛，并有白色腺点与小凹点。 全草入药，有温经、去湿、散寒、止血、消炎、平喘、止咳、安胎、抗过敏等作用。艾叶晒干捣碎得“艾绒”，制艾条供艾灸用，又可作“印泥”的原料。艾晒干粉碎成艾蒿粉，还可以做天然植物染料使用。民间认为艾草还有辟邪、招百福的作用，端午期间挂艾草于门上，相沿成习，遂成端午风俗。”

Chinese Version

Today is Tuesday. My daughter invited me to join a casual gathering of Israeli visiting scholars and students on campus in the evening. She said: “So you can experience college life again.”

During the gathering, the visiting scholars and the students sang a lots of popular Hebrew songs. Though I could not understand the meaning of the lyrics, I enjoyed the beautiful voices and the bright smiles from the singers.

The gathering was held in a modern meeting place that has room for about 20 people. The meeting place was filled with electronic equipment, including sound system, light system, big screens and a projector, an electronic piano, a few electronic guitars, and many wired and wireless microphones…

My memory flashed back to my own college life (1981-1985), more than thirty years ago. We only gathered on holidays, never on regular school days. Our holiday gatherings always took place in the class room where the only electronic device was the light bulb. During our gatherings, we drum-passed a flower, sang songs, cracked jokes, recited poems, and asked each other riddles. In my college life, very few of my classmates knew how to play music instruments. In today’s college society, it seems every student is capable of playing music instruments, singing, and dancing.

These things will touch me more deeply if I see the big differences between now and then. Tonight’s gathering touched me deeply.

More than thirty years’ of technology and culture advance created these opportunities for students to show off their talents on well quipped stages during school day casual gathering, this is wonderful!

Siting among joyful college students, I experienced the youthful college life for a second time. I was quietly delighted, a good feeling that came from age and life-experience.

I hope all the kids in college will have a wonderful college life.

Side Note: The style of college students

I used to hear lots of joke about a software developers’ favorite style is jeans with checkered shirt. Tonight, I noticed that college students wear jeans and sneakers too, but none of them wear checkered shirts. One of the very active student, a senior who majored in economics, was dressed from head to toe in various blue things: blue shoes, blue jeans, and blue sweater. It was very handsome.

Chinese Version

In 2020, during the “Stay At Home” quarantine, I frequently visited the nearby campus, which was very empty and very quiet, because teachers and students were all staying at home and attending on-line classes.

Walking on campus, I rarely met people who were walking their dogs or walking their children. If I saw them, I always quickly moved away from them to obey the 6-feet social distance rule, I would tease myself in my mind: “Well done for being a good citizen.”

At the end of April 2020, one afternoon, while walking on the quiet campus, I suddenly heard cars honking and people shouting, along with happy whilst.

To prevent COVID-19 spread among people, many states issued “Stay At Home” quarantines. There were reports about people who went downtown to protest “Stay At Home” orders in some states.

Massachusetts governor had already extended the “Stay At Home” order, started on March 24th, to May 18th here. If the noise was a protest against the order in the neighborhood next to the quiet campus, I thought it was very dramatic.

I could not resist to go out of the campus and go into the noise community, I saw five-six cars circling the neighborhood slowly, I heard the car honking frequently, I also heard happy shouting inside the house, I felt joyful spread in the air, it was unlike a protest.

When I near the slow driving cars, I noticed there were “Happy birthday” colorfully written on car windows. I was delighted to know that I was witnessing an unordinary happy birthday celebration parade right now.

In 2020, during COVID-19 “Stay At Home” quarantine (under no hug, no kiss, and no gathering over ten people rule), party goers organized a driving through and honking parade to celebrate birthday, this was very festive and quite unique.

Human beings are geniuses with regards to inventing new ways to pursue happiness.

Later Episodes

The honking parade to celebrate birthday started in 2020 extends to 2021.
On January 18, 2021, someone was curious about “many cars whistle for 10 minutes at 4:00 p.m.” on NextDoor.
It appears that new things to become folk customs will take time.

今年是我第一次在美国东部麻省的waltham享受春天。Waltham的春花，目前为止我看得最多的是校园里的白玉兰花。

Brandeis校园里的白玉兰，和蓝天红墙相呼应，舒展着特有的高贵温柔美丽，真的是不负春光不负痴花人。

盛开的白玉兰，花色柔和，花型娇俏，释放着一种安稳恬静。凝视着白玉兰，我会深深地感受到春的快意。

白玉兰，让我想到妈妈， 因为妈妈喜欢玉兰花。妈妈告诉我玉兰花很高贵。

白玉兰让我想起四月Filoli的玉兰，因为那里有花型各异色彩丰富的好多玉兰花。费罗丽花园里的玉兰，有雍容的、野性的、娇俏的、硕大的、多层的、单层的；有紫色的、粉色的、雪白的、藕白的、黄色的。

现在是春天，今晚下的是春雨。我想到了杜甫的“好雨知时节，当春乃发生。”

在远离诗中我熟悉的锦官城（成都），我听着雨声借诗抒情：“明天，不知道玉兰花是否还重Waltham？”

小插曲

1. 我的分享：

【春色浓】盛开的玉兰和湛蓝的天空呼应，安宁美丽。繁荣的黄花和耀眼的阳光交融，斗艳争辉。宁静的校园，寂寞的周末。

2.《春夜喜雨》
杜甫 （712年2月12日-770年）
好雨知时节，当春乃发生。
随风潜入夜，润物细无声。
野径云俱黑，江船火独明。
晓看红湿处，花重锦官城。

拼音注释：
《 chūn yè xǐ yǔ》
hǎo yǔ zhī shí jié， dāng chūn nǎi fā shēng 。
suí fēng qián rù yè ，rùn wù xì wú shēng 。
yě jìng yún jù hēi ，jiāng chuán huǒ dú míng。
xiǎo kàn hóng shī chù， huā zhòng jǐn guān chéng。

白话文注释：
好雨知道时辰，总在春天降临。
随风进入夜幕。无声滋润万物。
黑夜笼罩野径；唯渔船上灯明。
晨看带露红花，满城繁花盛开。

晚上看了一部1972年的经典喜剧电影《What’s Up，Doc？》。 电影很搞笑，也很夸张，值得一看。

电影里的旧金山九曲花街场景唤起了我记忆中的五月九曲花街：硕大的绣球花在花园里、艳丽的三角梅在临街的墙上、各种族裔川流不息、单行车道车辆下坡缓慢。那是一个很上镜头的寸土观光胜地。

因为疫情居家令限制着远途爱花人的行踪，我猜今年五月九曲花街的绣球花一定很寂寞。不过，今年春天，在远离阳光加州的麻省Waltham，爱花的我却不寂寞。我每天在家附近走走，依然观赏到好多熟悉的春花：
贴梗海棠花（flowering quince）、
海棠花（crape apple）、
樱花（cherry）、
大杜鹃（rhododendron）、
小杜鹃（azalea）、
玉兰花（magnolia）、
梨花（ornamental pear）、
苹果花（apple）、
李子花（plum）……

今年春天，爱花的我还常有快意，来自那美东大众花：紫色的丁香花（lilac）和白色或粉红色的四照花（dogwood）。

丁香花和四照花，在加州时，我只在硅谷的Filoli花园见过；今年在Waltham，我在公路边、住宅前、校园里、公园里常见到。常见常添快意，爱花人特有的乐趣。

人爱花，花悦人，一种天长地久。

小插曲

旧金山的九曲花街

英文版

二零一八年十月十六日周二晚上，我陪女儿去学校参加以色列访问学者和在校大学生的互动聚会。女儿说：“你好再次体验大学生活。”

聚会上来访的学者和在校学生一起唱了好多流行的希伯莱语歌曲。虽然听不懂歌词，我很喜欢演唱者优美的歌声和灿烂的笑容。

聚会设在能容纳二十多个人的城堡里的高端小会场，那里有齐全的电子器材（音响、灯光、投影仪、大屏幕、电子琴、电子吉他、好多的扩音器……）。

回想起三十多年前我的大学时代，我们在节假日里在只有电灯泡的教室里聚会联欢、击鼓传花，唱歌讲笑话，读诗猜谜语。那时能拉琴的同学可是凤毛麟角，现在的大学里，大学生好像个个都能拨弄琴弦，引吭高歌。

很多东西，要有比较才找得到更好的感受。

三十多年的科技文化进步让多才多艺的大学生们有机会在装备齐全的会场在平常的日子娱乐消遣展示风采，真好！坐在欢快的大学生中间再次体验大学生活，我默默地开心着，缘于岁月和经历带来的好感觉。

祝愿渴望上大学的孩子们都有一个美好的大学时代！

补笔：大学生的衣着

大学生们几乎都是各色各式的牛仔裤和运动鞋，别具一格只在上衣；但是没有人穿格子衫的（刚看到的一则笑话：“程序员都爱格子衫“）。聚会上很活跃的一位是学经济的大四生，他一袭蓝色：深蓝色鞋，蓝色细管牛仔裤，蓝色针织外套，很帅气。