精美英文欣赏:尤蒂卡的午餐时光

 If my life were a movie I would fast-forward through junior high. My junior high years were painful. Like every junior high kid, I was dealing¹ with awakening² sexuality, and struggling with who I was and how I would make my mark in life. But I was sure I was alone with these strange feelings.

如果我的人生是一出电影,我会快进初中求学那部分内容。我的初中时光充满了痛苦。像每个初中生一样,我得面对情窦爱欲的萌芽,为认识自我建立自我而挣扎,苦恼该如何给自己的人生烙下印记。但那时,我确信自己得单独面对这些奇怪的感受。

I was trying and failing in a number of things. I wanted to excel in athletics³ but had not yet figured out that that would never happen. I wasn’t academic enough to spell academic. (I’m a little surprised right now that I was able to spell that without the aid of my nifty little Microsoft Word spell checker). I was trying to gain a spot in the pecking order as a new kid in school. All the while, I remember suffering the rejection⁴ of most of my peer being cut from the basketball team, failing to play football that I so wanted to play. It was a time of questioning how girls saw me and wanting so much to be loved and accepted. To be loved and accepted seemed to me at the time something I could never, in all my life, achieve.

我尝试过做一些事情,但都失败了。我希望自己成为运动健将,但当时没意识到那是绝不会发生的。我学业成绩不好,连“academic”这个词都拼不出来(此刻,没有那棒极了的微软文档“拼写检查”小功能的帮助,我也能拼出“academic”那个词,我都感到有些吃惊)。作为学校里的一名新生,我很想跻身于校园里的社交圈子。我一直记得自己当时遭到了大多数同龄人的排斥,被踢出篮球队,渴望踢足球却踢不成。那时候,我会揣测女孩们眼中的自己是怎样的,多么希望有人爱自己,有人接受自己。但那时,被爱和被接受于我而言似乎是某种我这一生都不会得到的东西。

During that time I would go through the cafeteria line and eat alone, feeling unloved and unnoticed. As spring came, one day I was starting out the door and complaining that I had no one to eat with. Mom said to me, “If you want, you can come home for lunch.” That day, when lunch came, it was a beautiful spring day in the hills of central Ohio. The bell rang at noon and I bolted from the school and ran across the little village home to eat. I wondered if my mom would remember. When I got there, Mom was getting a little chicken pot pie out of the oven for me. It was a very humble⁵ lunch. It was just one of those four-for-a-dollar pot pies with little diced⁶ pieces of chicken, frozen peas and carrot in some chicken gravy⁷.

那段时光里,我会穿过在学生餐厅里排队的人群,独自用餐,感觉自己被忽视且不被喜欢。冬去春来,有一天,我准备出门,抱怨着没人和我一起吃饭。母亲对我说:“你喜欢的话,可以回家吃午饭呀。”那天,午餐时间到了,那正是俄亥俄州中部山区一个美丽的春日。中午,铃声响起,我从学校跑出来,跑过那个小村庄回家吃饭。不知道母亲是否还记得当时的情景。当我回到家,母亲正从烤炉里拿出一小块鸡肉馅饼给我。那是一顿简便的午餐,就是一块那种一美元就能买到四块的鸡肉馅饼,里面有些许鸡肉粒,冰冻豌豆和胡萝卜,浇上些鸡肉汁。

Mom set a cloth napkin beside my plate at the end of the table just beneath the window. I sat at our humble kitchen table in our tiny, white rented home on Maple⁸ Street in Utica. Mom listened to me while I talked about whatever was on my mind. In about 15 minutes my time was up and I ran back to school.

餐桌就放置在窗台下,母亲在餐桌边我的碟子一旁放了块餐巾。在我们那间位于尤蒂卡枫叶街租来的白色小房子里,我坐在厨房里那张简陋的餐桌旁。母亲听我说着心头的大事小事。大约过了15分钟,我的午休时间结束了,我跑回学校。

That was in about 1972, thirty years ago. My mom at the time was in her early thirties. She seemed so old to me then and thirty-year-olds seem like children to me now. She sat across the table for about 15 minutes and looked at me and listened to me and three decades later I remember those times with fondness. She just paid attention to me. It’s a powerful thing to pay attention to people.

那大约是在1972年,30年前发生的事了。我母亲当时才三十出头。她那时在我看来已经很老了。而现在,三十多岁的人对我来说就像小孩。餐桌上的15分钟里,她都坐在我对面,看着我,听我讲话。30年后,我还会满心欢喜地忆起那些时光。她关注的就是我。给予他人以关注是一件伟大的事。

Now you know a little more about how I see home. Home is a place where you don’t have to sit alone and eat. Home is a place where people don’t ignore you and avoid you.

现在,你又知道了多一些我对家的看法了。家,是一个你不需要独自坐着吃饭的地方。家,是一个你不会被忽略或避开的地方。

Home is a place where it doesn’t really matter that much what’s on the menu, simple things are sweet to the taste in an atmosphere of love and security and acceptance. Moms are people who listen to you when no one else is interested. And moms don’t ever think the small mundane⁹ things you do don’t matter. Moms don’t laugh at your dreams. Good moms pay attention. Great moms fix you something warm to eat and pay attention.

家,是一个吃什么其实不那么重要的地方。在一种充满爱、安全感和被认可的氛围中,简单的东西品尝起来也会显得香甜可口。当别人都对你的事不感兴趣时,母亲是那个会倾听你心声的人。而且,对于你做的那些无聊小事,母亲从不会认为它们是不重要的。母亲不会嘲笑你的梦想。好母亲会关注她的孩子。伟大的母亲会为你准备一些温馨的食物,并给予你关注。

I’m not sure what was happening at the time but I know those little chicken pot pies were not worthy¹⁰ of a sprint¹¹ across town. With the clarity of vision that the years bring, I now know that I needed a friendly place of warm acceptance for a few minutes a day. I didn’t need my stomach filled as much as I needed my emotional fuel tank refilled. And refueling an emotional fuel tank is a good mother’s specialty¹².

我不确定当时是怎么回事,但我知道,那些小小的鸡肉馅饼并不值得我穿城飞跑回家。岁月使我看得愈加清晰,我现在知道了,我当时需要一个温暖的空间——一天之中能给我几分钟的温暖认可。相比填饱肚子,我更需要给我的“精神油箱”加油。而给“精神油箱”加油是一个好母亲的专长所在。

1 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

2 awakening   

n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的

参考例句：

• the awakening of interest in the environment 对环境产生的兴趣
• People are gradually awakening to their rights. 人们正逐渐意识到自己的权利。

3 athletics   

n.运动，体育，田径运动

参考例句：

• When I was at school I was always hopeless at athletics.我上学的时候体育十分糟糕。
• Our team tied with theirs in athletics.在田径比赛中，我们队与他们队旗鼓相当。

4 rejection   

n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃

参考例句：

• He decided not to approach her for fear of rejection.他因怕遭拒绝决定不再去找她。
• The rejection plunged her into the dark depths of despair.遭到拒绝使她陷入了绝望的深渊。

5 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

6 diced   

v.将…切成小方块，切成丁( dice的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The meat should be finely diced for this dish. 做这种菜肴肉必须细细切成小方块。 来自辞典例句
• Arther diced himself into debt. 亚瑟因掷骰子而负了债。 来自辞典例句

7 gravy   

n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快

参考例句：

• You have spilled gravy on the tablecloth.你把肉汁泼到台布上了。
• The meat was swimming in gravy.肉泡在浓汁之中。

8 maple   

n.槭树，枫树，槭木

参考例句：

• Maple sugar is made from the sap of maple trees.枫糖是由枫树的树液制成的。
• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。

9 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

10 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

11 sprint   

n.短距离赛跑；vi. 奋力而跑，冲刺；vt.全速跑过

参考例句：

• He put on a sprint to catch the bus.他全速奔跑以赶上公共汽车。
• The runner seemed to be rallied for a final sprint.这名赛跑者似乎在振作精神作最后的冲刺。

12 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。