[推荐]佳作欣赏

Words from A Loving Father

IN THE DOORWAY of my home, I looked closely at the face of my 23-year-old son, Daniel, his backpack by his side. We were saying good-bye. In a few hours he would be flying to France. He would be staying there for at least a year to learn another language and experience life in a different country.

It was a transitional time in Daniel's life, a passage, a step from college into the adult world. I wanted to leave him with words that would have some meaning, some significance beyond the moment.

But nothing came from my lips. No sound broke the stillness of my beachside home on Long Island. Outside, I could hear the shrill cries of sea gulls as they circled the ever-changing surf. Inside, I stood frozen and quiet, looking into the searching eyes of my son.

What made it more difficult was that I knew this was not the first time I had let such a moment pass. When Daniel was five, I took him to the school-bus stop on his first day of kindergarten. I felt the tension in his hand holding mine as the bus turned the corner. I saw color flush his cheeks as the bus pulled up. His questioning eyes looked up at mine.

What is it going to be like, Dad? Can I do it? Will I be okay? And then he walked up the steps of the bus and disappeared inside. And the bus drove away. And I had said nothing.

A decade or so later, a similar scene played itself out. With his mother, I drove him to the College of William and Mary in Virginia. His first night, he went out with his new schoolmates. When he met us the next morning, he was sick. He was coming down with mononucleosis, but we could not know that then. We thought he had a hangover.

In his room, Dan lay stretched out on his bed as I started to leave for the trip home. I tried to think of something to say to give him some courage and confidence as he started this new phase of life.

Again, words failed me. I mumbled something like, "Hope you feel better, Dan." And I left.

Now, as I stood before him, I thought of those lost opportunities. How many times have we all let such moments pass?

A parent dies, and, instead of giving a eulogy ourselves, we let a clergyman speak. A child asks if Santa Claus is real, or where babies come from, and, embarrassed, we slough it off. When a daughter graduates or a son is married, we watch them go through the motions of the ceremony. But we don't seek out our children and find a quiet moment to tell them what they have meant to us. Or what they might expect to face in the years ahead.

How fast the years had passed. Daniel was born in New Orleans, slow to walk and talk, and small of stature. He was the tiniest in his class, but he developed a warm, outgoing nature and was popular with his peers. He was coordinated and agile, and he became adept in sports.

Baseball gave him his earliest challenge. He was an outstanding pitcher in Little League, expecting to make it big in high school. It didn't happen that way. He failed to move up from the junior varsity team. But he stuck it out. Eventually, as a senior, he moved up to the varsity. He won half the team's games. At graduation, the coach named Daniel the team's most valuable player.

His finest hour, though, came at a school science fair. He entered an exhibit showing how the circulatory system works. He sketched it on cardboard. It was primitive and crude, especially compared to the fancy, computerized, blinking-light models entered by other students. My wife, Sara, felt embarrassed for him.

It turned out that the other kids had not done their own work--their parents had made their exhibits. As the judges went on their rounds, they found that these other kids couldn't answer their questions. Daniel answered every one. When the judges awarded the Albert Einstein Plaque for the best exhibit, they gave it to him.

By the time Daniel left for college he stood six feet tall and weighed 170 pounds. He was muscular and in superb condition. But he never pitched another inning. He found that he could not combine athletics with academics. He gave up baseball for English literature. I was sorry that he would not develop his athletic talent, but proud that he had made such a mature decision. He graduated with a "B" average.

One day, I told Daniel that the great failing in my life had been that I didn't take a year or two off to travel when I finished college.

This is the best way, to my way of thinking, to broaden oneself and develop a larger perspective on life. Once I had married and begun working, I found that the dream of living in another culture had vanished.

Daniel thought about this. His Yuppie friends said that he would be insane to put his career on hold. But he decided it wasn't so crazy. After graduation, he worked as a waiter, a bike messenger, and a house painter. With the money he earned, he had enough to go to Paris.

The night before he was to leave, I tossed in bed. I was trying to figure out something to say. Nothing came to mind. Maybe, I thought, it wasn't necessary to say anything.

What does it matter in the course of a lifetime if a father never tells a son what he really thinks of him? But as I stood before Daniel, I knew that it does matter. My father and I loved each other. Yet, I always regretted never hearing him put his feelings into words and never having the memory of that moment.

Now, I could feel my palms sweat and my throat tighten. Why is it so hard to tell a son something from the heart? My mouth turned dry. I knew I would be able to get out only a few words clearly.

"Daniel," I said, "if I could have picked, I would have picked you."

That's all I could say. I wasn't sure he understood what I meant. Then he came toward me and threw his arms around me. For a moment, the world and all its people vanished, and there was just Daniel and me.

He was saying something, but my eyes misted over, and I couldn't understand what he was saying. All I was aware of was the stubble on his chin as his face pressed against mine. And then, the moment ended, and Daniel left for France.

I think about him when I walk along the beach on weekends. Thousands of miles away, somewhere out past the ocean waves breaking on the deserted shore, he might be scurrying across Boulevard Saint Germain, strolling through a musty hallway of the Louvre, bending an elbow in a Left Bank café.

What I said to Daniel was clumsy and trite. It was nothing. And yet, it was everything.

The Power of Silence

What did you not say yesterday? Were there things you wish you had said but held back? Did you corral certain words, certain sentences, and hold them for another opportunity? Were some thoughts pushed below the surface, allowed to be changed with time, perhaps to be forgotten forever? How many “I love you’s” went unsaid that would have healed an aching heart? As with sleep, you cannot store them and build a reserve to tap into at a later date. Their power, their balming effect, quickly dissipates with disuse. They work only in the moment that they were intended. Left idle, their potential is gone, the object of their delivery untouched by kindness, by tenderness.

“I love you.” It is so simple to say. Three words. There are many other opportunities to say them, but none more important and possessing more potential than now. Words can have the opposite effect if left unsaid, almost as if they were spoken as opposites. Silence can equal the opposite. “I love you” unsaid can become “I don’t love you” out loud. Your most tender and endearing thoughts, if not allowed to fly free from the prison of your mind, may silently tell someone that you don’t care. How many times has your silence told your partner or child that you didn’t love them? How often has an unsaid word created the opposite effect? Think of all the lives that would have been changed had armies of sentences been allowed to roam free. Those who go through life cloaked in spoken endearments, wrapped and comforted in the voiced love of others, are truly blessed. The power of the spoken word is mighty. The power of silence can be mightier still.

Countless millions of words have been written and spoken since the beginning of human history. A total of all the words in all the libraries of the world, past and present, and every word of every conversation, idle chatter, lecture, broadcast, and speech in history would be dwarfed by the vast legions of words left unsaid, those rendered impotent by silence. Not that it is a good thing to instantly speak every thought that comes to mind: chaos would ensue. We have to be selective of our words and deliver them into the pattern of conversation where appropriate; however, it is our mental editing that isolates certain words and thoughts as unspeakable, and sentences them to die (pun intended).

Words can change the world. They can incite, torture, kill, comfort, heal, encourage, humiliate, anger, inspire, sadden, give joy, make one laugh, and they can forever change one’s life. There are many kinds of words: “In other words,” four-letter-words, words that are read, words to make you blue; there is the spoken word, the written word, the forgotten word; we put words in someone’s mouth, and we don’t have the words to express.... Words, words, everywhere, and not a thought to speak. And the unsaid words—oh, how they could have changed the course of history! Would they have altered the destructive lives of John Wilkes Booth, Adolph Hitler, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jeffrey Daumer, or the Son of Sam? Would the unspoken “I love you’s” have given them a new lease on life had those three words been bestowed upon them?

The power of words and their silent cousins: “What did you say?” “Nothing.” Think of the consequences had that “nothing” actually been, “I was wrong. I’m sorry. I apologize and want to make it up to you.” Instead, a relationship was probably hurt forever, or even eventually terminated. “Ouch, that hurts,” if left unsaid, can become one of many familiar wedges in a marriage, or any relationship. Not expressed, it can fester inside, becoming worse and much larger over time than it originally was. It also will accumulate other unsaid “ouches,” and grow to become a very powerful “I hate your guts.” It can eat at one’s insides if not voiced. Actually, its release will help the relationship; its incarceration will destroy.

Don’t withhold. Let the hostages go. Release the words while they still hold their meaning. Release them before they change in silence. The loneliest place in the world, more desolate and forbidding than the blackest cell of any prison, is a silent marriage/partnership. All the city lights from Manhattan to Bangkok could probably be powered by the turbulent energy of the silent, but unrelenting, dialogues churning in the minds of an unhappy couple. And it would be possible, as well, to freeze solid the oceans of the world by the dynamics between the two.

Allow your thoughts to be heard. You are the most powerful person on earth. You alone possess the ability to change your world, make friends, and influence people. You have the key. Use your words for good. They can help you. Don’t withhold them, for in their muted state they can turn on you. Life is a fine balance of releasing the right words in the right order at the right time, and deciding which words are truly better left unsaid.

Today I Saw a Butterfly

Today I saw a butterfly,
as it floated in the air;
Its wings were spread in splendor,
Unaware that I was there.
It was such a thing of beauty,
It was a sight to see;
It was the perfect masterpiece,
Full of grace and majesty.

I found myself thinking,
to what can this compare?
And then, of course, I thought of you,
And I wished that you were there.

God sure was extra careful,
When He formed and fashioned you;
You too, became a masterpiece,
Yet God is still not through.

He's daily making changes,
that other folks can't see;
You're already true perfection,
At least you are to me.

Hold Your Head up High

I was fifteen months old, a happy carefree kid . . . until the day I fell. It was a bad fall. I landed on a glass rabbit which cut my eye badly enough to blind it. Trying to save the eye, the doctors stitched the eyeball together where it was cut, leaving a big ugly scar in the middle of my eye. The attempt failed, but my mama, in all of her wisdom, found a doctor who knew that if the eye were removed entirely, my face would grow up badly distorted, so my scarred, sightless, cloudy and gray eye lived on with me. And as I grew, this sightless eye in so many ways controlled me.

I walked with my face looking at the floor so people would not see the ugly me. Sometimes people, even strangers, asked me embarrassing questions or made hurtful remarks. When the kids played games, I was always the "monster." I grew up imagining that everyone looked at me with disdain, as if my appearance were my fault. I always felt like I was a freak.

Yet Mama would say to me, at every turn, "Hold your head up high and face the world." It became a litany that I relied on. She had started when I was young. She would hold me in her arms and stroke my hair and say, "If you hold your head up high, it will be okay, and people will see your beautiful soul." She continued this message whenever I wanted to hide.

Those words have meant different things to me over the years. As a little child, I thought Mama meant, "Be careful or you will fall down or bump into something because you are not looking." As an adolescent, even though I tended to look down to hide my shame, I found that sometimes when I held my head up high and let people know me, they liked me. My mama's words helped me begin to realize that by letting people look at my face, I let them recognize the intelligence and beauty behind both eyes even if they couldn't see it on the surface.

In high school I was successful both academically and socially. I was even elected class president, but on the inside I still felt like a freak. All I really wanted was to look like everyone else. When things got really bad, I would cry to my mama and she would look at me with loving eyes and say, "Hold your head up high and face the world. Let them see the beauty that is inside."

When I met the man who became my partner for life, we looked each other straight in the eye, and he told me I was beautiful inside and out. He meant it. My mama's love and encouragement were the spark that gave me the confidence to overcome my own doubt. I had faced adversity, encountered my problems head on, and learned not only to appreciate myself but to have deep compassion for others.

"Hold your head up high," has been heard many times in my home. Each of my children has felt its invitation. The gift my mama gave me lives on in another generation.

A Boy and his Tree

Long ago,there was a huge apple tree. a little boy love to come and play around it everyday.he climbed to the tree top,ate the apples,took a nap under the shadow…he loved the tree and the tree loved to play with him.time went by…the little boy had grown up and he no longer played around the tree everyday.

one day,the boy came back to the tree and he looked.
"come and play with me ,"the tree asked the boy .
"i am no longer a kid, i don't play around trees anymore."the boy replied,
"i want toys.i need money to buy them."
"sorry,but i don't have money…but you can pick all my apples and sell them.
so,you will have money."the boy was so excited .he grabbed all the apples
on the tree and left happily.the boy never came back after he picked the
apples.the tree was sad.

one day,the boy returned and the tree was so excited.
"come and play with me ,"the tree said.
"i don't have time to play.i have to work for my family.we need a house for
shelter.can you help me?"
"sorry,but i don't have a house .but you can chop off my branches to build
your house."so the boy cut all the branches of the tree and left happily.
the tree was glad to see him happy but the boy never came back since then.
the tree was again lonely and sad.

one hot summer day,the boy returned and the tree was delighted.
"come and play with me !"the tree said.
"i am sad and getting old.iwant to go sailing to relax myself.can you give
a boat?"
"use my truck to build your boat.you can sail faraway and be happy."
so the boy cut the tree truck to make a boat .he went sailing and never
showed up for a long time.

finally, the boy returned after he left for so many years.
"sorry,my boy.but i don't have anything for you anymore.no more apples for
for you…“the tree said.
"i don't have teeth to bite."the boy replied.
"no more truck foe you to climb on."
"i am too old for that now."the boy said.
"i really can give you anything…the only thing left is my dying roots."the
tree said with tears.
"i don't need much now,just a place to rest.i am tired after all these year"
the boy replied.
"good!old tree roots is the best place to lean on and rest. come,come sit
down with me and rest."the boy sat down and the tree was glad and smiled
with tears……

Don’t Miss Out on Life

It takes only a minute to get crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone. But it takes a lifetime to forget someone.

Don't go for looks; they can deceive. Don't go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile. Because it only takes a smile to make a dark day seem bright. Find the one that makes your heart smile.

Maybe we meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one so that when we finally meet the right person. We will know how to be grateful for that gift.

It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives.

Giving someone all your love will not provide assurance that they'll love you back. Don’t expect love in return; Just wait for it to grow in their hearts. But if it doesn't, be content. It grew in yours.

There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real!

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, and enough hope to make you happy.

The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

Happiness are for those who cry, those who have searched, and those who have tried because only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.
 

A Telephone Call

PLEASE, God, let him telephone me now. Dear God, let him call me now. I won't ask anything else of You, truly I won't. It isn't very much to ask. It would be so little to You, God, such a little, little thing. Only let him telephone now. Please, God. Please, please, please.

If I didn't think about it, maybe the telephone might ring. Sometimes it does that. If I could think of something else. If I could think of something else. Maybe if I counted five hundred by fives, it might ring by that time. I'll count slowly. I won't cheat. And if it rings when I get to three hundred, I won't stop; I won't answer it until I get to five hundred. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty.... Oh, please ring. Please.

This is the last time I'll look at the clock. I will not look at it again. It's ten minutes past seven. He said he would telephone at five o'clock. "I'll call you at five, darling." I think that's where he said "darling." I'm almost sure he said it there. I know he called me "darling" twice, and the other time was when he said good-bye. "Good-bye, darling." He was busy, and he can't say much in the office, but he called me "darling" twice. He couldn't have minded my calling him up. I know you shouldn't keep telephoning them ?I know they don't like that. When you do that they know you are thinking about them and wanting them, and that makes them hate you. But I hadn't talked to him in three days ?not in three days. And all I did was ask him how he was; it was just the way anybody might have called him up. He couldn't have minded that. He couldn't have thought I was bothering him. "No, of course you're not," he said. And he said he'd telephone me.

He didn't have to say that. I didn't ask him to, truly I didn't. I'm sure I didn't. I don't think he would say he'd telephone me, and then just never do it. Please don't let him do that, God. Please don't.

"I'll call you at five, darling." "Good-bye, darling." He was busy, and he was in a hurry, and there were people around him, but he called me "darling" twice. That's mine, that's mine. I have that, even if I never see him again. Oh, but that's so little. That isn't enough. Nothing's enough, if I never see him again. Please let me see him again, God. Please, I want him so much. I want him so much. I'll be good, God. I will try to be better, I will, If you will let me see him again. If You will let him telephone me. Oh, let him telephone me now.

Ah, don't let my prayer seem too little to You, God. You sit up there, so white and old, with all the angels about You and the stars slipping by. And I come to You with a prayer about a telephone call. Ah, don't laugh, God. You see, You don't know how it feels. You're so safe, there on Your throne, with the blue swirling under You.Nothing can touch You; no one can twist Your heart in his hands. This is suffering, God, this is bad, bad suffering. Won't You help me? For Your Son's sake, help me. You said You would do whatever was asked of You in His name. Oh, God, in the name of Thine6 only beloved Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, let him telephone me now.

I must stop this. I mustn't be this way. Look. Suppose a young man says he'll call a girl up, and then something happens, and he doesn't. That isn't so terrible, is it? Why, it's going on all over the world, right this minute. Oh, what do I care what's going on all over the world? Why can't that telephone ring? Why can't it, why can't it? Couldn't you ring? Ah, please, couldn't you? You damned, ugly, shiny thing. It would hurt you to ring, wouldn't it? Oh, that would hurt you. Damn you, I'll pull your filthy roots out of the wall, I'll smash your smug black face in little bits.7 Damn you to hell.

No, no, no. I must stop. I must think about something else. This is what I'll do. I'll put the clock in the other room. Then I can't look at it. If I do have to look at it, then I'll have to walk into the bedroom, and that will be something to do. Maybe, before I look at it again, he will call me. I'll be so sweet to him, if he calls me. If he says he can't see me tonight, I'll say, "Why, that's all right, dear. Why, of course it's all right." I'll be the way I was when I first met him. Then maybe he'll like me again. I was always sweet, at first. Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.

I think he must still like me a little. He couldn't have called me "darling" twice today, if he didn't still like me a little. It isn't all gone, if he still likes me a little; even if it's only a little, little bit. You see, God, if You would just let him telephone me, I wouldn't have to ask You anything more. I would be sweet to him, I would be gay, I would be just the way I used to be, and then he would love me again. And then I would never have to ask You for anything more. Don't You see, God? So won't You please let him telephone me? Won't You please, please, please?

Are You punishing me, God, because I've been bad? Are You angry with me because I did that? Oh, but, God, there are so many bad people ?You could not be hard only to me. And it wasn't very bad; it couldn't have been bad. We didn't hurt anybody, God. Things are only bad when they hurt people. We didn't hurt one single soul; You know that. You know it wasn't bad, don't You, God?So won't You let him telephone me now?

If he doesn't telephone me, I'll know God is angry with me. I'll count five hundred by fives, and if he hasn't called me then, I will know God isn't going to help me, ever again. That will be the sign. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty, fifty-five... It was bad. I knew it was bad. All right, God, send me to hell. You think You're frightening me with Your hell, don't You? You think. Your hell is worse than mine.

I mustn't. I mustn't do this. Suppose he's a little late calling me up ?that's nothing to get hysterical about.Maybe he isn't going to call ?maybe he's coming straight up here without telephoning. He'll be cross10 if he sees I have been crying. They don't like you to cry. He doesn't cry. I wish to God I could make him cry. I wish I could make him cry and tread the floor and feel his heart heavy and big and festering in him. I wish I could hurt him like hell.

He doesn't wish that about me. I don't think he even knows how he makes me feel. I wish he could know, without my telling him. They don't like you to tell them they've made you cry. They don't like you to tell them you're unhappy because of them. If you do, they think you're possessive and exacting. And then they hate you. They hate you whenever you say anything you really think. You always have to keep playing little games. Oh, I thought we didn't have to; I thought this was so big I could say whatever I meant. I guess you can't, ever. I guess there isn't ever anything big enough for that. Oh, if he would just telephone, I wouldn't tell him I had been sad about him. They hate sad people. I would be so sweet and so gay, he couldn't help but like me. If he would only telephone. If he would only telephone.

Maybe that's what he is doing. Maybe he is coming on here without calling me up. Maybe he's on his way now. Something might have happened to him. No, nothing could ever happen to him. I can't picture anything happening to him. I never picture him run over. I never see him lying still and long and dead. I wish he were dead. That's a terrible wish. That's a lovely wish. If he were dead, he would be mine. If he were dead, I would never think of now and the last few weeks. I would remember only the lovely times. It would be all beautiful. I wish he were dead. I wish he were dead, dead, dead.

This is silly. It's silly to go wishing people were dead just because they don't call you up the very minute they said they would. Maybe the clock's fast; I don't know whether it's right. Maybe he's hardly late at all. Anything could have made him a little late. Maybe he had to stay at his office. Maybe he went home, to call me up from there, and somebody came in. He doesn't like to telephone me in front of people. Maybe he's worried, just a little, little bit, about keeping me waiting. He might even hope that I would call him up. I could do that. I could telephone him.

I mustn't. I mustn't, I mustn't. Oh, God, please don't let me telephone him. Please keep me from doing that. I know, God, just as well as You do, that if he were worried about me, he'd telephone no matter where he was or how many people there were around him. Please make me know that, God. I don't ask YOU to make it easy for me ?You can't do that, for all that You could make a world. Only let me know it, God. Don't let me go on hoping. Don't let me say comforting things to myself. Please don't let me hope, dear God. Please don't.

I won't telephone him. I'll never telephone him again as long as I live. He'll rot in hell, before I'll call him up. You don't have to give me strength, God; I have it myself. If he wanted me, he could get me. He knows where I am. He knows I'm waiting here. He's so sure of me, so sure. I wonder why they hate you, as soon as they are sure of you. I should think it would be so sweet to be sure.

It would be so easy to telephone him. Then I'd know. Maybe it wouldn't be a foolish thing to do. Maybe he wouldn't mind. Maybe he'd like it. Maybe he has been trying to get me. Sometimes people try and try to get you on the telephone, and they say the number doesn't answer. I'm not just saying that to help myself; that really happens. You know that really happens, God. Oh, God, keep me away from that telephone. Keep me away. Let me still have just a little bit of pride. I think I'm going to need it, God. I think it will be all I'll have.

Oh, what does pride matter, when I can't stand it if I don't talk to him? Pride like that is such a silly, shabby little thing. The real pride, the big pride, is in having no pride. I'm not saying that just because I want to call him. I am not. That's true, I know that's true. I will be big. I will be beyond little prides.

Please, God, keep me from, telephoning him. Please, God.

I don't see what pride has to do with it. This is such a little thing, for me to be bringing in pride, for me to be making such a fuss about. I may have misunderstood him. Maybe he said for me to call him up, at five. "Call me at five, darling." He could have said that, perfectly well. It's so possible that I didn't hear him right. "Call me at five, darling." I'm almost sure that's what he said. God, don't let me talk this way to myself. Make me know, please make me know.

I'll think about something else. I'll just sit quietly. If I could sit still. If I could sit still. Maybe I could read. Oh, all the books are about people who love each other, truly and sweetly. What do they want to write about that for? Don't they know it isn't true? Don't they know it's a lie, it's a God damned lie? What do they have to tell about that for, when they know how it hurts? Damn them, damn them, damn them.

I won't. I'll be quiet. This is nothing to get excited about. Look. Suppose he were someone I didn't know very well. Suppose he were another girl. Then I'd just telephone and say, "Well, for goodness' sake, what happened to you?" That's what I'd do, and I'd never even think about it. Why can't I be casual and natural, just because I love him? I can be. Honestly, I can be. I'll call him up, and be so easy and pleasant. You see if I won't, God. Oh, don't let me call him. Don't, don't, don't.

God, aren't You really going to let him call me? Are You sure, God? Couldn't You please relent? Couldn't You? I don't even ask You to let him telephone me this minute, God; only let him do it in a little while. I'll count five hundred by fives. I'll do it so slowly and so fairly. If he hasn't telephoned then, I'll call him. I will. Oh, please, dear God, dear kind God, my blessed Father in Heaven, let him call before then. Please, God. Please.

Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five....

注： 这是曾获“欧·亨利纪念奖”（The O. Henry Awards, 1918年开始设立， 专门用以奖励每年度的最佳短篇小说）的美国女诗人、短篇小说家帕克（Dorothy Parker 1893-1967）的代表作之一。作者以细腻的手法，意识流的叙事方式，展现给读者一位饱受爱情折磨的女性的心理独白。其实，作为一个坚定的社会主义者，帕克又何尝不是在告诫女性：女性不能坐等爱的出现，应该学会主宰自己的命运。

A Wedding Speech

Life comes from life. The universe is a living thing made by love and of love. The earth too as part of the universe is a living thing made of love. We experience her love in the abundance of support she provides us such as the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. And we recognize the divinity of her unconditional love and so call her mother earth or some of us refer to her as goddess. We must recognize as well that we too spring from universal love and as such carry a spark of the divine within each and everyone of us.
Ladies and gentleman,
We are here today to witness and celebrate a passage of life, a passage of love, which Ariele and Martin have chosen to enter upon. They have decided to become more than just lovers, but a family. Moving from onstage of life to another. You have been invited to be physical representatives of the divine and give your support to their union, so as to help make their new path a joyous one, one that is walked upon with wonder and ease. For truly, whether we recognize it or not, we are all family all of the time. Therefore we deeply thank you for your presence as we thank the goddess herself for being with us always.
This celebration is not and end, but a beginning, the start of a new process. From my experience it is not the marriage ceremony nor the marriage that is important, but the love and friendship that you share. Those will ensure a longer lasting relationship than any ritual.
With all my heart I bless you and trust that all will go well in your new life together. My love goes with you, as I am sure everyone else’s love in this place goes with you as sell. Goddess be with you. Blessed be.

A Good Teacher, A Good Luck

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the art since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
I shall speak only of my first teacher because in addition to the other things, she brought discovery.
She aroused us to shouting, bookwaving discussions. She had the noisiest class in school and she didn’t even seem to know it. We could never stick to the subject. She breathed curiosity into us so that we brought in facts or truths shielded in our hands like captured fireflies.
She was fired and perhaps rightly so, for failing to teach fundamentals. Such things must be learned. But she left a passion in us for the pure knowable world and she inflamed me with a curiosity which has never left. I could not do simple arithmetic but through her I sensed that abstract mathematics was very much like music.
When she was relieved, a sadness came over us but the light did not go out. She left her signature on us, the literature of the teacher who writes on minds. I suppose that to a lager extent I am the unsigned manuscript of the high school teacher. What deathless power lies in the hands of such a person.
I can tell my son who look s forward with horror to fifteen years of drudgery that somewhere in the dusty dark a magic may happen that will light up the years…if he is very lucky.

《时代》杂志阅读笔记 (1)

刚刚读完《时代》杂志上的一篇关于西欧与北美在工作与生活上的分歧的一个文章(ESSAY)。做了一些比较阅读，与各位一起分享。

Europeans Just Want to Have Fun
Long vocations. Lots of dancing. So why can’t we loosen up?

欧洲人有那么多假期和舞会，我们(美国人)为什么不能也放松一些呢？

文章主要是针对西欧和北美的生活方式作一比较。文章的作者首先提出一个问题，既然欧洲人可以那么想得开，(Just Want to Have Fun)， 那我们(美国人)为什么就不能也放松一些呢(So why can’t we loosen up?)

下面我们来看文章的第一段：
Walking across Boulevard St. Michel, in Paris last week, on the night before Bastille Day, I bumped into an old friend - an American who has lived in the city for 25 years - who told me he was taking up the tango. When I asked him why, he suggested I take a stroll along the Left Bank of the Siege, opposite Ile St. Louis, and so of curse I did.

一日该作者过巴黎密歇尔(St. Michel) 大道，遇到(bumped into)一位在巴黎呆了25个年头的老友。寒暄过后，该老友告诉作者说自己迷上(taking up)探戈了。困惑之余就照吩咐往Siege河西岸去一探究竟。

下面是文章的第二段。描写的是在西岸的所见所闻。
It was one big party. A drop-dead-gorgeous crowd was tangoing away in a makeshift, open-air amphitheater. Nearby, a multiethnic group was doing the merengue. Hundreds of others were tucking into picnics by the river as a full moon rose in a cloudless sky. Much later that night, after a perfect fish soup in the Place des Vosges, I walked into the narrow passages of the Marais district and stumbled upon an impromptu block party. Someone had set up a sound system on the sidewalk, and the street was packed with people - straight and gay, young and old, black and white - dancing to salsa.

一到河西岸，作者就被眼前的景像给愣住了。只见一大拨，一大茬的人群，煕煕 攘攘，随风起舞，如痴如梦。 drop-dead-gorgeous 表达的是的壮关的场面。文章里还有一些
近景描写：不同族裔的人群在跳merengue舞， 月光下，小河边，人们席地而坐，尽情享受(tucking into)野炊的乐趣。作者无意之间(impromptu)又与另一拨的人群迎面相遇 (stumbled upon)。老老少少，各色族群(black and white)，载歌载舞，这一次跳得是SALSA ， 源自非洲的一种舞蹈。

下面我们来看第三段。讲得是欧洲人的午夜摇滚，饮酒派对。

Europe is enjoying itself. O.K., in late July, it always does. The weekend I was in Paris, an estimated 500,000 kids descended on Berlin for the annual Love Parade, a carnival of techno music, dope and sex. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of families started their treks from the damp north of the continent to their vacation homes in the warm south. But even when the sun isn’t shining, Europeans seem to be throwing themselves into fun and festivity with unprecedented zeal. Each weekend, central London is one great bacchanal. Cities that for reasons of politics or religion were once gloomily repressive - Madrid, say, or Dublin - now rock to the small hours. In Prague the foreign visitor who get talked about are not the earnest young Americans who flocked there in the early 1990s, but British partygoers who have flown in for the cheap beer and pretty girls. The place that British historian Mark Mazower once called the true dark continent - and from whose curdled soul the horrors of fascism and communism sprang - has become Europa ludens, a community at play.

看过载歌载舞的人群后，作者得出一个结论：欧洲人过得自在(
Europe is enjoying itself) 50万少年男女由天而降，来到柏林(descended on Berlin)，参加一年一度的爱之旅(annual Love Parade)。此外，成千上万的家庭由潮湿的欧洲北部(the damp north of the continent)， 来到温暖的南部，来到自己的度假屋。而后作者笔锋一转，进一步论证欧洲人生活得是如何的自由自在。周末的伦敦简直就是一个饮酒派对(one great bacchanal)。昔日受宗教政治桎梏，郁郁寡欢的马得里，都柏林(Cities that for reasons of politics or religion were once gloomily repressive - Madrid, say, or Dublin)，而今是摇滚至午夜 (rock to the small hours)。 布拉格人谈论的不再是那些90年代初成群结队，接踵而至的年轻美国人了(the earnest young Americans who flocked there )。取而代之的是来自英国的派对客(British partygoers)冲着廉价的啤酒，漂亮的妞慕名而至 (flown in for the cheap beer and pretty girls)。昔日被史学家称为绝对黑暗大陆(true dark continent)的欧洲，如今成为了LUDENS - 一个快乐的都城(a community at play)。

下面我们来看看第四段。在这一段里，作者回顾了一下美国的昔日辉煌。
Funny. This is how the U.S was supposed to be. In a famous series of essays collected in his 1976 book, the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Daniel Bell noted how the decline of the Protestant small-town ethic had unhinged American capitalism form its moral foundation in the intrinsic value of work. By the 1960, Bell argues, “the cultural justification of capitalism (had) become hedonism, the idea of pleasure as a way of life. “This magazine agreed. In a 1969 cover story tilted “California: A State of Excitement,” Time reported that, as most Americans saw it, “the good, godless, gregarious pursiuit of pleasure is what California is all about… ‘I have seen the future./ says the newly returned visitor to California, ‘and it plays.’”

想来可笑 (Funny)，这本应该是美国的模样嘛 (. This is how the U.S was supposed to be. This is how the U.S was supposed to be)。作者开始愤愤不平了。接下去，文章引用DANILAL BELL在《资本主义的文化矛盾》(the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism)中有关基督新教狭隘的价值观(Protestant small-town ethic )是如何的混淆了美国的资本主义的精髓的有关论述。DANILA 认为人们对于工作的真正价值(the intrinsic value of work)，还有道德基础(moral foundation)出现混乱都归咎鱼新教(had unhinged American capitalism )。所以文化层面上的对资本主义的拨乱反正(cultural justification of capitalism)就是要让享受与生活划上等号。而后，作者又引用时代1969年的一期杂志封面报道，说明非宗教性的，绝对的快乐追寻(“the good, godless, gregarious pursiuit of pleasure )就是当初加利尼亚州的一切之所在 (is what California is all about)。报道接下去说，每个刚从加州回来的人都认为说已经看到了未来。这些人得出的结论是：玩是行得通的。

以下是第五段：开始审视美国的现状。

But the American future didn''''t turn out as we expected. While Europeans cut the hours they spend at the office or factory — in France it is illegal to work more than 35 hours a week — and lengthened their vacations, Americans were concluding that you could be happy only if you work hard and play hard. So they began to stay at their jobs longer than ever and then, in jam-packed weekends at places like the Hamptons on Long Island, invented the uniquely American concept of scheduled joy, filling a day off with one appointment after another, as if it were no different from one at the office. American conservatives, meanwhile, came to believe that Europeans'''' desire to devote themselves to the pleasures of life and — the shame of it!--six weeks annual vacation was evidence of a lack of seriousness and would, in any event, end in economic tears.

美国的未来并不是我们所想象的呀(But the American future didn''''t turn out as we expected)。作者这么说道。欧洲人现在把工作时间缩短为每周35小时(While Europeans cut the hours they spend at the office or factory)，延长了假期( lengthened their vacations)，美国人则是反其道而行之。许多认为只有拼命工作玩命的玩(work hard and play hard)，才有幸福。于是，人们比任何时候都长时间的工作。之后就开始在人潮汹涌的度假地开始了美国式的塞得满满当当的快乐假期(scheduled joy)。此外，一些保守的美国人对于欧洲人全身心的投入于生活的评价是“可耻之至！” the (shame of it!)一年六个礼拜的假期证明了这些欧洲人是多么的不负责任啊。保守者们总结说，欧洲人最后是要付出代价的：为经济(衰退)而流泪的(end in economic tears. )

下面一段是分析为什么美国人与欧洲人在工作与生活上有这么大的分歧(Why do Europeans and Americans differ so much in their attitude toward work and leisure)

Why do Europeans and Americans differ so much in their attitude toward work and leisure? I can think of two reasons. First, the crowded confines of Western Europe and the expansive space of North America have led to varied consumer preferences. Broadly speaking, Americans value stuff — SUVs, 7,000-sq.-ft. houses — more than they value time, while for Europeans it''''s the opposite. Second, as Bell predicted, America''''s sense of itself as a religious nation has revived. At least in the puritanical version of Christianity that has always appealed to Americans, religion comes packaged with the stern message that hard work is good for the soul. Modern Europe has avoided so melancholy a lesson.

为什么有这么大的分歧呢？作者归结为以下两点：第一：西欧拥挤的环境与北美宽广的空间造就了不同的消费取向( the crowded confines of Western Europe and the expansive space of North America have led to varied consumer preference)。美国人对于实在的玩艺比如房车，7000平尺的房子等等，的喜好要胜过欧洲人对于时间的喜好。(Broadly speaking, Americans value stuff - SUVs, 7,000-sq.-ft. houses - more than they value time, while for Europeans it''''s the opposite.)
第二：美国的宗教意识复苏(America''''s sense of itself as a religious nation has revived)。严厉的教条规劝人们说工作对于道德灵魂的作用是伟大的。(religion comes packaged with the stern message that hard work is good for the soul. )

下面是最后一段：作者来了个总结：
Whatever the explanation, the idea of a work-life balance is a staple of European discourse, studied in think tanks, mulled over by policymakers. In the U.S., the term, when it''''s used at all, is said with the sort of sneer reserved for those who eat quiche. But it might still catch on. When Bill Keller was named executive editor of the New York Times last week, he encouraged the staff to do "a little more savoring" of life, spending time with their families or viewing art.

Even better, they could take up the tango.

作者是这么开场的：不管人们的解释如何，工作与生活的平衡是欧洲的人心所向(a staple of European discourse)
。同时也是智库与决策人员观察与思考到的(studied in think tanks, mulled over by policymakers)那么北美的情况又是如何呢？文章的回答是这种所谓的平衡只有发生在那些吃蛋奶火腿蛋糕人上。笔锋一转，作者又说：“说不准我们也这么做呢，这也不一定的哟(But it might still catch on)。 为什么呢？就在上个星期，纽约时报总编走马上任的时候，该总编就鼓励手下人员给生活增加一些色彩，多陪陪家人。或者是去画廊看看画勋赏一些艺术。要不然就调探戈好了Even better, they could take up the tango。

[此贴子已经被作者于2007-12-26 17:36:08编辑过]