雙語 ● Somewhere a Room of One’s Own 我的小天地
Somewhere a Room of One’s Own 我的小天地
◎ Susan Branch
My room at home was too small for me. I barely had room for all the little knickknacks I’d collected over the years. There were so many things I had to pack away in boxes and store in closets all over the house. Oftentimes I didn’t quite remember exactly where everything was.
對我來說，我的房間太小了。我?guī)缀鯖]有多余的空間放置那些多年收集的小玩意兒。我有太多的東西需要裝箱，需要藏進(jìn)家里的各個壁櫥里。我時常想不起那些東西究竟放在哪兒。
There were all the notes my girlfriends and I passed throughout junior high, along with all the goofy poems my first boyfriend paid his friends to write and passed along to me as his originals. I also had a separate box for rose petals collected from past birthdays, Valentine’s Days, anniversaries, and proms. I kept all my pictures in neatly organized albums on the bottom shelf of my bookcase. I had jewelry that I never wore but I thought I might someday need stashed away all over my room. I also saved birthday and Christmas cards, leaves that had fallen from the trees the previous fall, and medals I won for participating in piano recitals. On another shelf of my bookcase I even had a brick I found on the playground at my elementary school.
那些東西包括：初中時期我和好姐妹們的點點滴滴；初戀男友寫給我的那些青澀的情詩（其實是他花錢請朋友寫的）。我還有另外一個箱子，專門用來放置過去的生日會、情人節(jié)、周年紀(jì)念日以及舞會上收到的薔薇花。我的相冊就整齊地擺放在書架的最底層。我有珠寶首飾，但我從來都不戴?？墒菚心敲匆惶欤瑸榱苏覍に鼈?，我會翻遍整個房間。我也會收藏生日卡和圣誕卡，早秋時節(jié)從樹上飄落的葉子，還有我在鋼琴比賽上獲得的那些獎杯。甚至在我的書架上，還有一個位置是專屬于那塊從小學(xué)里撿來的磚塊。
I’m not exactly sure why I saved everything, but I have some sort of idea. I never wanted to forget the great times I’d had growing up. I always feared I’d become one of those adults who couldn’t relate to children because they simply couldn’t remember having been children themselves. I wanted to remember the flowers my brother gave me when no other boy would. I wanted to someday look back at pictures of my first trip to Panama City. For some strange reason, I wanted to remember the day my playmates and I found that broken brick on the playground and thought our school was being broken into.
其實我并不確定自己為什么要收藏這些東西。然而，一些想法始終縈繞著我。也許我不愿忘卻成長過程中經(jīng)歷的那些歡樂時光。我生怕自己會和那些大人一樣，他們無法親近孩子，只因他們早已忘記自己曾經(jīng)也是孩子。我想記?。簺]有男生送花給我的時候，是哥哥送花給我。我想在某一天，看著照片回憶自己第一次去巴拿馬旅行的點點滴滴。也許有一些奇怪的原因，我想記住我跟玩伴在操場上發(fā)現(xiàn)那塊破磚塊的日子。那時的我們還天真地以為學(xué)校也會裂成碎片。
So I kept my life stored away in my bedroom, tucked neatly into boxes, stacked high up in my closet, on display on my bookcases, stashed discreetly away in my underwear drawer in hopes I’d never forget anything. I loved my room because it was all about me. I didn’t have to share it with anyone else. My memories didn’t have to mingle with a sibling’s or roommate’s. My room at home was just that ... my room, full of my things.
所以，我將我的生活封存在我的臥室里：它們整齊地擺放在盒子里；它們高高地疊放在衣櫥里；它們陳列在我的書架上；它們被我偷偷地藏在那個用來收納內(nèi)衣的抽屜里，這樣我就不會忘記了。我愛我的房間，只因它的一切都與我有關(guān)。我不必和他人共享這一切。我的回憶也不會和兄弟姐妹或者室友的回憶糾纏不清。我的房間就是……我的房間，滿滿的都是屬于我的東西。
Now that I’m away from home, enrolled in college, and sharing ten cubic feet with another girl, my old bedroom doesn’t seem so small. I try my hardest to make my half of the room personal to me, but in a space so small, that proves almost impossible. Occasionally her books will find their way to my half of the desk, or her shoes will be near my closet. Sometimes crumbs from the crackers she’s eating litter my half of the carpet, and every so often, her hair brush begins to hang around with mine.
也許是離開了家，踏進(jìn)了大學(xué)校園，還要和另一個女孩共用一個十平米大的房間。我突然覺得家里的那間臥室也不是很小了。我盡了最大的努力讓一半的房間只屬于我。然而，如此狹小的空間里，我的想法根本無法實現(xiàn)。她的書本偶爾也會在我的桌面上出現(xiàn)，或者她的鞋子就擺在我的衣櫥前面。有時我的毯子上稀稀疏疏滿是她吃餅干時掉下的碎屑。她的梳子也常常到我梳子的“地盤”上瞎逛。
I don’t have room for all the little memories I cherish. I only brought a handful of pictures from home, left behind all my yearbooks, as well as my dried flowers and “who loves who” notes. Perhaps the worst part about the whole ordeal is that I don’t have room to start any new collections. The threat is there that I won’t have anything to remind me of my college years. That’s a really scary thought for me. This place where I sleep and study isn’t my room. It’s just a room.
這樣，我珍愛的那些記憶便無處“安身”了。我只帶了一些照片，把我所有的畢業(yè)紀(jì)念冊、干花以及那些寫著“誰喜歡誰”的短箋留在了家里。也許最慘痛的事情莫過于沒有空間開始我的新收藏了。恐怖的是我的大學(xué)生活將無從回憶。這對我來說太可怕了。我睡覺學(xué)習(xí)的地方并不專屬于我，它只是一個房間而已。
404 South Carrick Hall is just a place to sleep, study, and watch my roommate watch TV. It’s filled with textbooks, CD-ROMs, and dishes... things that aren’t supposed to be in a bedroom. There’s only room for one stuffed animal and three posters which have a hard time staying on brico-block walls. I hate the fact that there’s a microwave and refrigerator in the room where I sleep, and I hate that I’m responsible for filling them.
卡里克大廳南區(qū)404號房僅僅只是一個學(xué)習(xí)睡覺的地方。當(dāng)然，我還可以在那靜靜地看著我的室友看電視。房間里堆滿了教科書、CD和飯盒……這些東西本不該出現(xiàn)在臥室里。這里只能容下一個吃飽的人和三張從墻上剝落的海報。我討厭睡覺的房間里還有微波爐和冰箱。更可惡的是我還要負(fù)責(zé)“喂飽”它們。
Maybe even worse than my new room’s lack of personality is the lack of privacy it offers. Occasionally, and especially during home-coming, my roommate comes in after I’ve gone to sleep. She doesn’t mean to wake me up, but when she starts her nightly contact-removal ritual, I can’t help but hear what seems like thousands of different cleaning solution bottles bumping around the sink. I’ve been known to bother her too. During the day when I’m trying to study, my typing interferes with her enjoyment of “The Loveboat”, “Days of Our Lives”, and “Another World”.
新房間缺少個性不說，更糟糕的是它沒有任何隱私可言。有些時候，特別是該睡覺的時候，室友會在我睡下之后推門進(jìn)來。我知道她不是故意要把我吵醒。可當(dāng)她開始那一連串的睡前動作時，我的耳朵便不聽使喚了，我仿佛聽到了水池旁傳來成千上萬個洗面奶瓶子互相撞擊的聲音。當(dāng)然，我知道自己也曾打擾過她。正當(dāng)我想學(xué)習(xí)的時候，打字的聲音卻妨礙她欣賞那些美妙的音樂，像《愛之船》、《我們的日子》和《另一個世界》。
My roommate is not the only one who deprives me of privacy and makes 404 a room that is not really my own. The girls next door to me see me as a back-up grammar check when their computers don’t catch every mistake. I can’t lock them out because it’s not my room to lock. I can’t say “Go away”, because they’ve gotten to be really good friends and I can’t be rude to people I care about.
室友并不是唯一一個會奪走我的隱私，并把404變成不屬于我的房間的人。住在隔壁的女孩們，她們把我看成備用的語法拼音檢查機(jī)，因為電腦無法找出每一個錯誤。我無法上鎖，只因它不是我一個人的房間。我不能說“走開”，只因她們早已成為我的好友，再說我也無法無禮對待我在乎的人。
The lack of privacy thing really bothers me. Not only do I live in a room that acts as a bedroom, study, kitchen, living room, and bathroom, I don’t even get to be miserable in it by myself. Sometimes misery does not love company. Rather, it is created by company. If I can’t decorate my room to my liking, I should at least be able to suffer in it alone. But dormitories are not for being alone—I’ve been told—they’re about learning to get along with others. (Maybe I’ll see the positive results of this nightmare when I’m giving advice to my own children when they begin college, but for the moment, I’m completely oblivious to them.)
隱私的缺失的確讓我很懊惱。我所生活的房間不僅是臥室，也是書房、廚房、客廳和浴室。待在里面，我甚至無法悲傷。有時悲傷不喜歡同伴，但卻源自同伴。如果我無法隨心所欲地裝扮我的房間，至少我可以享受孤獨。可宿舍不是為了孤獨而存在的，這我早就知道，宿舍里的人們需要學(xué)會與人共處。（多年之后給剛剛踏入大學(xué)的子女們提意見時，也許我會記起這個“噩夢”給我?guī)淼哪切┖锰?。可是?dāng)下，我什么都不愿記住。）
There is some good news, however. Though she annoys me to no end, sometimes my roommate is just the person I want to see. I didn’t get to know her habits so well without her taking in a few of mine. She oftentimes knows what I’m going to say even before I do, and most of the time she knows exactly when not to say anything to me at all. She’s friend as well as foe, and I’d probably miss her if she left. The same sentiments apply to my neighbors. It’s really quite flattering that they, even if somewhat mistakenly, consider me some sort of grammar goddess.
然而，偶爾也會有好的一面。雖然她的吵鬧永無止境，可有時她正是那個我想見到的人。我不如她了解我那樣了解她。她常常知道我想說卻還未說出口的話，而且她也知道什么時候應(yīng)該閉嘴。她是朋友，也是敵人。如果她離開了，我一定會想她。對于隔壁的女孩們，我有著同樣的情感。她們把我當(dāng)作語法糾錯女神確實有點阿諛奉承的意思。
And perhaps most important is the next thought. While I don’t live in a room that’s completely mine anymore, and probably won’t ever again, I do find comfort in the knowledge that somewhere there’s a pink, green, and white bedroom with a brick on the bookshelf, a diary in the underwear drawer, and an air of privacy that belongs strictly to me. It may not be my room as often as I’d like, but it will wait for me, just like I sit and wait for it.
也許最重要的是那些緊隨其后的想法。然而，我再也不愿住進(jìn)一間完全不屬于我的房間里，而且我再也不會那樣做。我終于懂得住在一間粉色、綠色和白色漆成的房間里是多么幸福！房間書架上擺放著一塊磚頭，收納內(nèi)衣的抽屜里藏著一本日記，還有那份完全屬于我的私人空間。它也許不是我所喜歡的房間，但是它就在那兒安靜地等著我，就像我也會靜靜地坐在那兒等著它一樣。
