All Flowers Are Beautiful (II)

⊙ By Suzanne Chazin翻譯：藍(lán)藍(lán)

All Flowers Are Beautiful (II)

⊙ By Suzanne Chazin翻譯：藍(lán)藍(lán)

一花獨(dú)放不是春，百花齊放春滿園——你有你的艷麗奪目，我有我的平凡可愛，正因萬物之美千姿百態(tài)，才構(gòu)成了我們這個(gè)豐富多彩的世界。草木同此理，人亦應(yīng)如是……

Backstage the night of the performance, I felt nervous. A few minutes before the play, my teacher came over to me. “Your mother asked me to give this to you,” she said, handing me a1)dandelion. Its edges were already beginning to curl, and it2)flopped lazily from its stem. But just looking at it, knowing my mother was out there, and thinking of our lunchtime talk made me proud.

After the play, I took home the flower I had3)stuffed in the apron of my costume. My mother pressed it between two4)sheets of5)paper toweling in a dictionary, laughing as she did it that we were perhaps the only people who would press such a sorry-looking weed.

I often look back on our lunchtimes together, bathed in the soft midday light. They were the commas in my childhood, the pauses that told me life is not6)savored in pre-measured7)increments, but in the sum of daily8)rituals and small pleasures we casually share with loved ones. Over peanut-butter sandwiches and chocolate-chip cookies, I learned that love, first and foremost, means being there for the little things.

A few months ago, my mother came to visit. I9)took off a day from work and treated her to lunch. The restaurant10)bustled with noontime activity as business people made11)deals and glanced at their watches. In the middle of all this sat my mother, now retired, and I. From her face I could see that she12)relished the pace of the work world.

1) dandelion ['d?nd?la??n] n. 蒲公英

2) fop [fl?p] v. （不由自主地）落下

3) stuff [st?f] v. 把……塞進(jìn)

4) sheet [?i?t] n. 一片，一張

5) paper toweling 紙巾，也寫作paper towel。

6) savor ['se?v?(r)] v. 盡情享受，品嘗

7) increment ['?nkr?m?nt] n. 增值，盈余

8) ritual ['r?t???l] n. 慣例，例行公事

9) take off 休假，休息

10) bustle with 充滿

11) deal [di?l] n. 交易

12) relish ['rel??] v. 喜歡，欣賞

“Mom, you must have been terribly bored staying at home when I was a child,” I said.

“Bored? Housework is boring. But you were never boring.”

I didn’t believe her so I pressed, “Surely children are not as13)stimulating as a career.”

“A career is stimulating,” she said. “I’m glad I had one. But a career is like an open14)balloon. It remains15)inflated only as long as you keep pumping. A child is a seed. You water it. You care for it the best you can. And then it grows all by itself into a beautiful flower.”

Just then, looking at her, I could picture us sitting at her kitchen table once again, and I understood why I kept that16)flaky brown dandelion in our old family dictionary pressed between two17)crumpled bits of paper toweling.

13) stimulating ['st?mj?le?t??] adj. 有刺激性的，令人興奮的

14) balloon [b?'lu?n] n. 氣球

15) infated [?n'fle?t?d] adj. 充了氣的，脹大的

16) faky ['fle?k?] adj. 薄片的，易碎的

17) crumpled ['kr?mpld] adj. 變皺的，弄皺的

I learned that love, frst and foremost, means being there for the little things.

First and foremost是個(gè)很常見的插入語，它由first（首先）和foremost（最重要的）兩個(gè)詞組成，從字面上我們就能猜到這個(gè)詞組的意思是“首要的，比什么都重要”，強(qiáng)調(diào)詞組后面引出內(nèi)容的重要性，如：He does a bit of writing, but frst and foremost, he’s a teacher. （他也會(huì)寫點(diǎn)文章，但他首先是個(gè)老師。）

演出當(dāng)天晚上，我在后臺(tái)有點(diǎn)緊張。就在開演前的幾分鐘，老師來到我身邊。“你媽媽讓我把這個(gè)交給你，”她說著就把一朵蒲公英遞給我。它的花瓣邊緣已經(jīng)有點(diǎn)卷曲，從花莖上無精打采地耷拉下來。但是一看到它，知道媽媽坐在臺(tái)下，想起我們午餐時(shí)間的談話，我的心底就涌出了一種自豪感。

演出結(jié)束后，我把那朵塞進(jìn)演出服圍裙里的蒲公英帶回家。媽媽把它夾在兩張紙巾中間，再夾進(jìn)字典里壓干。她一邊壓花一邊笑著說，大概只有我們倆會(huì)把這么一株無精打采的雜草做成干花了。

我時(shí)常憶起與媽媽在正午的和煦陽光中共進(jìn)午餐那些日子。它們就像是我童年里的一個(gè)個(gè)逗號。這些停頓告訴我，體味人生不在于那些預(yù)計(jì)好的增長量，而在于日常習(xí)慣的不斷積累，以及在不經(jīng)意間與親人分享的小小快樂。透過那些花生醬三明治和碎巧克力曲奇，我認(rèn)識(shí)到，愛的首要意義便是為了相伴經(jīng)歷那些微不足道的事情。

幾個(gè)月前，媽媽來看我。我請了一天假陪她，與她一起吃午飯。餐館里一派午間的繁忙景象，眾多商界人士有的在做交易，有的不時(shí)瞟一眼自己的手表。在忙碌的人群當(dāng)中，已經(jīng)退休的媽媽和我坐在那里。從她臉上，我看得出她非常向往這種上班族的快節(jié)奏生活。

“媽媽，我小時(shí)候你一直就待在家里，一定覺得很煩吧，”我說。

“煩？家務(wù)活兒是挺煩人的，但是你永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)讓我覺得煩。”

我不太相信，于是不依不饒地說：“養(yǎng)孩子肯定不像工作那么令人振奮。”

“工作是很令人振奮，”她說。“我也很高興自己有過一番事業(yè)。不過，工作就像一個(gè)敞開口的氣球，你只有一直給它打氣，它才會(huì)保持飽滿的樣子。而小孩就像一顆種子，你給它澆澆水，盡你所能地呵護(hù)備至。然后，它就會(huì)自己長大，變成一朵美麗的花兒。”

那一刻，注視著這樣的媽媽，想象著我們倆回到她的廚房，再次坐在餐桌旁邊，我終于明白自己為什么至今仍然珍藏著我們家那本舊字典——那里面有一朵發(fā)黑易碎的蒲公英，一直夾在兩張皺巴巴的紙巾之間。