A Small Table Upstairs

Recently, I started watching Back to Field again.

When I saw He Jiong and Huang Lei sitting in the courtyard, I froze for a brief moment. Over so many previous seasons, they had said again and again that they might stop, that it could be the final season. Yet when they truly appeared again this time, it still felt a little unreal.

I first watched this show during my freshman year of college. Looking back now, from that time until I finished graduate school, nearly seven full years have passed. It feels as though every year, the show was simply there. I did not have to deliberately remember it, but the moment I saw it, I would know that another year had quietly gone by.

This season was very short. So short that before I felt I had really watched enough, it was already time to say goodbye. Even so, just this brief season felt like a form of comfort to me. At least I could still see them sitting in that courtyard, talking, cooking, and basking in the sunlight, as if time itself could slow down for a while.

It was also in that courtyard that a long forgotten memory suddenly surfaced.

It must have been during high school. At the time, I was preparing for the IELTS exam and practicing speaking one on one with a teacher. During that period, I stayed at my grandmother’s house. The second and third floors were still unfinished then. The windows had just been installed, and the rooms were completely empty. Aside from a bed, there was almost no furniture. It was the kind of place where even a thief would not know what there was to steal.

Many details have faded now. What I still remember is that my grandmother worried I would not be comfortable sitting for long. She carried a small square table up from the courtyard and brought a little wooden stool with it. On the second floor, she set up a temporary study space just for me.

In truth, all I needed was a laptop. I could have sat anywhere, even in the courtyard, and practiced speaking with my teacher. But in her eyes, studying was something that should have a proper place. So she built that small setup for me and had me sit there to practice.

As I spoke with my teacher, I could hear sounds from downstairs. She and my mother were in the courtyard, preparing food and chatting while they cooked, talking about what dishes to make that evening. They talked about me, about going abroad to study, and about how once I left, it would be many years before we could see each other often. At the time, I felt very little. It all seemed distant, like something far away.

Now, when I think back on it, there is a feeling I cannot quite name.

Over the years, my contact with my grandmother has not been frequent. Most of the time, she lives alone in the countryside. She has a smartphone and internet access, but she is not very comfortable using them. Video calls and voice messages feel complicated to her. On top of that, I am in the United States and she is in China. She often gets confused about the time difference. Sometimes she worries about disturbing my sleep. Other times, she does not know when it is appropriate to call. Gradually, our contact became less and less.

At times, I suddenly realize that even before, we did not live particularly close to her. Driving back or taking the high speed train still took several hours. Now that we are in different countries, going back has become even more difficult.

This year, I thought about giving my grandmother some birthday money and asking my aunts to help her buy something nice to eat. Whatever she wants to eat, she should enjoy it happily. As people grow older, they really do seem to become more like children. Joy and satisfaction become very simple.

As I write this, I suddenly miss her.

Perhaps that is why I have continued to watch Back to Field on and off all these years. The courtyard in the show, in some way, always reminds me of moments that now feel very far away. They are not dramatic memories, but quiet and gentle fragments.

Those days when no one was in a hurry. Those moments when someone thought a little more for you and prepared a little extra for you. Only in hindsight do you slowly understand how precious they were.

As for whether the show will continue in the future, I do not really know. But the years it accompanied me did help me, again and again, remember what I truly miss.

Maybe one day, I will ask my mother to visit my grandmother’s house again. I will listen from the other end of the phone as she says a few words. That would be enough.