发信人: szcgr()
整理人: imstella(2001-01-09 02:50:35), 站内信件
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I began to learn about love in dancing school, at age 12.
I remember thinking on the first day I was going to fall madly in
love with one of the boys and spend the next years of my life kissing
and waltzing.
12岁时，我在一所舞蹈学校上学，在那儿，我对爱情有了一些认识。
记得第一次上课时，我一直在想，自己将疯狂地爱上某个男孩子，
并与他在亲吻和华尔兹中度过校园时光。
During class, however, I sat among the girls,
waiting for a boy to ask me to dance.
To my complete shock, I was consistently one of the last
to be asked. At first I thought the boys had made a terrible
mistake. I was so funny and pretty, and I could beat everyone
I knew at tennis and climb trees faster than a cat.
Why didn’t they dash toward me?
我长得可爱而且漂亮，网球打得特别棒，爬起树来比猫还快。
但是，上课时，当我坐在那儿等着男孩子来邀请我时，
我却总是在最后被邀请之列。真奇怪！像我这样的女孩子，
他们难道不应该争先恐后地冲过来邀请我吗？
Yet class after class, I watched boys dressed in blue blazers
and gray pants head toward girls in flowered shifts
whose perfect ponytails swung back and forth like metronomes.
They fell easily into step with one another in a way
that was completely mysterious to me.
I came to believe that love belonged only to those
who glided, who never shimmied up trees or even really
touched the ground.
一节又一节课，我看着那些穿着蓝色运动上衣和灰色裤子的男孩一头扎向
那些阿打扮得花枝招展的女孩子,她们的马尾辫在脑后晃来晃去。
令我倍感惊奇的是，他们的步伐总是很合拍。于是我意识到，
爱情只属于那些优雅文静的女孩子，
而对像我这样上窜下跳的女孩则不会青眼有加。
By the time I was 13,
I knew how to subtly tilt my head and make my tears fall back
into my eyes, instead of down my cheeks,
when no one asked me to dance.
I also discovered the “powder room,”
which became my softly lit,
reliable retreat.
Whenever I started to cry, I’d excuse myself and run in there.
13岁时，我已经学会了没人请我跳舞时，如何巧妙地仰起头，
把眼泪收回眼眶，不让它们流下来；
我还发现了“化妆室”，那里灯光柔和，
是一个绝佳的躲避之处。每次我忍不住要哭的时候，就借故跑到那里去。
I finally stopped crying
when I met Matt, who was quiet and hung out on the edges of the room.
When we danced for the first time,
he wouldn’t even look me in the eyes.
But he was cute, and he told great stories.
We became good buddies, dancing every dance together until the end of
school.
这样的日子一直持续到我遇到马特时为止。
他是一个文静的男孩，第一次跳舞时，他甚至不敢正视我。
但是他很可爱，从他那儿我听到很多奇闻趣事。
我们成了亲密无间的朋友，一直到毕业。
I learned from him my most important
early lesson about romance:
that the potential for love exists in corners,
in the most unlikely as well as the most obvious places.
从他那儿我学到了有关恋爱的最重要的早期课程：
爱的可能性无处不在，既在最显眼之处，也在最不起眼的地方。
For years my love life continued to be one long tragicomic novel.
In college I fell in love with a tall English major
who rode a motorcycle.
He stood me up on our sixth date——an afternoon of sky diving.
I jumped out of the plane alone and landed in a parking lot.
之后几年，我的爱情生活就像一部悲喜相交的长篇小说。
上大学期间，我爱上了英语系一位骑摩托车的高个小伙子。
我们的第六次约会是去跳伞，但那天下午他失约了，我只好独自从飞机上跳下，
降落在一个停车场上。
In my mid-20s I moved to New York City
where love is as hard to find as a legal parking spot.
My first Valentine’s Day there,
I went on a date to crowded bar on the Upper West Side.
Halfway through dinner my date excused himself
and never returned.
二十四五岁时，我搬到纽约。在那儿，
找寻真爱如同找上个合法的泊车位一样困难。
在纽约的第一个情人节，我前往西区北部一间拥挤的酒吧赴约，
晚餐吃了一半，我的约会对象借故离席后便一去不返。
At the time, I lived with a beautiful roommate.
Flowers piled up at our door like snowdrifts,
and the light on the answering machine always blinked
in a panicky way, overloaded with messages from her admirers.
Limousines purred outside, with dates waiting for her
behind tinted windows.
那时，与我同住的是个漂亮女孩，那些追求她的人送的花在门口堆积如山，
电话录音机上的灯疯狂地闪个不停，里面录满了她的仰慕者们的留言。
高级小轿车停在屋外，邀请者在茶色玻璃后等待着她。
In my mind, love was something behind a tinted window,
part apparition, part shadow, definitely unreachable.
Whenever I spotted happy-looking couples,
I’d wonder where they found love,
and want to follow them home for the answer.
在我脑海里，爱情就像是茶色玻璃后的某种东西，半隐半现，难以企及。
每当我看到一对对脸上洋溢着幸福与快乐的情侣，
我就想问问他们是如何找到真爱的，并想跟去他们家里看个究竟。
After a few years in the city I got my dream job
——writing about weddings for a magazine called 7 Days.
I had to find interesting engaged couples
and write up their love stories.
I got to ask total strangers
the things I’d always wanted to know.
在纽约呆了几年之后，我终于得到了自己梦寐以求的：工作，
为一份名为《七日谈》的杂志写婚礼报道。
我的任务就是寻找一些有趣的订了婚的情侣，
并将他们的爱情故事写出来。
这使我终于有机会向那些陌生人打听我一直想了解的事情。
I found at least one sure answer to the question
“How do you know it’s love?”
You know when the everyday things surrounding you
——the leaves, the shade of light in the sky,
a bowl of strawberries
——suddenly shimmer with a kind of unreality.
我发现至少有一个答案可以回答“你怎么知道这是爱”这个问题。
当你周围一些原本平常的东西，像树叶、天空中的光影、一碗草莓，
忽然间蒙上了一层梦幻的色彩，你就会知道那是因为爱。
You know when the tiny details about another person,
ones that are insignificant to most people,
seem fascinating and incredible to you.
One groom told me he loved everything about his future wife,
from her handwriting to the way
she scratched on their apartment door like a cat
when she came home. O
ne bride said she fell in love with her fiancé
because “ one night, a moth was flying around a light bulb,
and he caught it and let it out the window.
I said, ‘THAT’S IT. He’s the guy.’”
一个人的某些方面在很多人看来可能是微不足道的，
但对恋爱中的人来说却是迷人的，
难以抗拒的。一位新郎曾告诉过我说，他爱未婚妻的一切，
从她的字体到她回家时像猫一样挠门的习惯。
有一位新娘爱上她的未婚夫则是因为
“有一晚，一只蛾在灯泡周围飞来飞去，
他捉住了它，然后将它从窗口放了出去。
当时我想：‘是的，他就是我要找的人。’”
You also know it’s love when you can’t stop talking to
each other.
Almost every couple
I’ve ever interviewed said that
on their first or second date,
they talked for hours and hours.
For some, falling in love is like walking into a soundproof confessio
nal booth,
a place where you can tell all.
当你们滔滔不绝地相互倾诉时，你会知道那是因为爱。
几乎每一对儿我采访过的情侣都说，
他们在第一次或第二次约会时，几小时几小时地谈个没完。
对一些人来说，坠入爱河就像是走进一间隔音的忏悔室，
在那儿，你可以说出心里的一切。
Finding love can be like discovering a gilded ballroom
on the other side of your dingy apartment,
and at the same time like finding a pair of great old blue jeans
that are exactly your size and seem as if you’ve worn them forever.
I can’t tell you how many women have told me they knew
they were in love
because they forgot to wear makeup around their boyfriend.
Or because they felt at ease hanging around him in flannel pajamas.
There’s some modern truth to Cinderella’s tale
——It’s love when you’re incredibly comfortable,
when the shoe fits perfectly.
找到爱情就像是在你窄小公寓的另一边，
发现了一个镀金的舞厅；
又像是发现了一条非常合你身材的舒适的旧牛仔裤，
就好像你一直穿着它一样。
我无法说清究竟有多少女人告诉过我，
她们确信自己在恋爱是因为，她们忘记了化妆就去会男朋友；
或者因为她们穿着法兰绒的睡衣在他身边晃来晃去也觉得很自在。
灰姑娘的故事即使在现代，也有其真实性：
当你感到无比惬意，当那双舞鞋恰恰合你的脚时，那肯定就是爱。
Finally, I think you’re in love if you can
make each other laugh at the very worst times
——when the IRS is auditing you
or when you’re driving a convertible in a rainstorm
or when your hair is turning gray.
As someone once told me ,
90 percent of being in love is making each other’s lives funnier and
easier,
all the way to the deathbed.
最后一点，如果你们在最糟的时候——比方说，
国内收入署查你账的时候，在暴风雪中开着敞篷车的时候，
或者你的头发变灰白的时候
——还能使对方开心地发笑，那你们肯定是在相爱。
正如有人告诉我的那样，
爱情，让恋爱中的人感到生活大都是轻松有趣的，
直到生命的终结。
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