慢走好時光

by Jenna Russell烏蕪譯

慢走好時光

Savoring Slow Morning Walks with My Preschooler

by Jenna Russell烏蕪譯

當父母的總會有這樣一種感覺：兒女似乎在彈指一揮間就長大成人了，一眨眼，他們就不再是小時候那個會向你撒嬌，纏著你要這要那的小寶貝。人生的道路很漫長，而父母能陪著孩子一起走就只是最初的那么一小段，時光匆匆，歲月無情，且行且珍惜！

Every morning, I go walking with my daughters.

The frst half of our1)jaunt goes quickly. The elementary school up the road starts at 9:05, and we don’t want to be late. We stroll2)briskly uphill to the top of our quiet street, cut through a narrow3)fringe of woods on a dirt path, and emerge at the end of the school playground. There, I hug my kindergartner goodbye and send her on her way, hot pink backpack bobbing behind her.

Then my 4-year-old and I turn around and start back.

This is a different sort of walk, one that lasts just as long as I am willing to let it. We cover the same one-third of a mile, but our pace is slower now, our path4)meandering, as we pause to probe the mysteries along the way. Emerging from the woods and back onto the street, we stop and sit a minute on a pair of cold gray boulders at the pathway entrance, me on the larger one and Poesy on the small one. Then we 5)make a beeline for the storm drain in the street, so she can crouch and peer into the darkness far below. She practices skipping. She jumps over 6)puddles before she 7)wades into them. She plays with her shadow, raising her arms high; she stops to chat with an old man weeding his garden. Her attention constantly revolves, drawn by dogs, feathers, eye-catching pebbles. Some days she takes up a collection, stuffing her hands full of treasures, delegating me to carry what she can’t.

每天早上，我都會和女兒們步行。

我們的前半段路程走得很快。路前方那間小學在9點零5分上課，我們不想遲到。我們疾步走到安靜的街道上坡，抄一條泥路穿過一小片樹林，到達學校的操場邊。在那里我跟上學前班的女兒擁抱揮別，目送她遠去，她身后那鮮亮的粉紅背包一跳一彈的。

然后我和我4歲的女兒便轉身往回走。

這是另一種步行方式，一種我想走多久就走多久的步行方式。我們的路程還是同樣那三分之一英里，但現在我們的步伐慢了下來，我們會停步探究沿路的神秘事物，我們的路線變得蜿蜒曲折。從樹林里出來，我們回到街道上。我們會在小徑入口處的兩塊冷灰色的大圓石上坐一會兒，我坐在較大的那塊上，波茜坐在較小的那塊上。然后我們便奔向街道的排水溝，她蹲伏窺視水溝下的黑暗深處。她練習蹦跳，跳過路上的水坑，舉高手與自己的影子玩耍，停下來與一位正在打理花園的老爺爺聊天。她的注意力不停地轉換，轉到狗狗上、羽毛上、搶眼的鵝卵石上。有時候，她會把路上的一些東西收集起來，手里抓滿她的珍藏品，還委派我拿一些她拿不了的東西。……