| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Girls of Summer 夏日女孩
◎ Kristie Helms
We lived on the banks of the Tennessee River, and we owned the summers when we were girls.
We ran wild through humid summer days that never ended but only melted one into the other. We
floated down rivers of weekdays with no school, no rules, no parents, and no constructs other than
our fantasies. We were good girls, my sister and I. We had nothing to rebel against. This was just life
as we knew it, and we knew the summers to be long and to be ours.
The road that ran past our house was a one lane rural route. Every morning, after our parents had
gone to work, I’d wait for the mail lady to pull up to our box. Some days I would put enough change
for a few stamps into a mason jar lid and l eave it in the mailbox. I hated bothering mail lady with
this transaction, which made her job take longer. But I liked that she knew that someone in our house
sent letters into the outside world.
I liked walking to the mailbox in my bare feet and leaving footprints on the dewy grass. I
imagined that feeling the wetness on the bottom of my feet made me a poet. I had never read poetry,
outside of some Emily Dickinson. But I imagined that at people who knew of such things would walk
to their mailboxes through the morning dew in their bare feet.
We planned our weddings with the help of barbie dolls and the tiny purple wild flowers
growing in our side yard. We became scientists and tested concoctions1 of milk, orange juice, and
mouthwash. We ate handfuls of bittersweet chocolate chips and licked peanut butter off spoons.
When we ran out of sweets to eat, we snitched sugary Flintstones vitamins out of the medicine
cabinet. We became masters of the Kraft macaroni and cheese lunch, and we dutifully called our
mother at work three times a day to give her updates on our adventures. But don’t call too often or
speak too loudly or whine2 too much, we told ourselves, or else they’ll get annoyed and she’ll get fired
and the summers will end.
Playboys and charged the neighborhood boys money to look at them. We made crank calls around
the county, telling people they had won a new car. “What kind?” they’d ask. “Red.” we’d always say.
We put on our mom’s old prom dresses, complete with gloves and hats, and sang backup to the C.W.
We went on hikes into the woods behind our house, crawling under barbed wire fences and
limes tone outcrop that marked the end of the Woods Behind Our House.
One day a thunderstorm blew up along the Tennessee River. It was one of those storms that
make the day go dark and the humidity disappear. First it was still and quiet. There was electricity in
the air and then the sharp crispness of a summer day being blown wide open as the winds rushed in.
We threw open all the doors and windows. We found the classical radio station from two towns away
twirled. We twirled in the living room in the wind and in the music. We twirled and we imagined that
we were poets and dancers and scientists and spring brides.
We twirled and imagined that if we could let everything—the thunder, the storm, the wind, the
world—into that house in the banks of the Tennessee River, we could live in our summer dreams
forever. When we were girls.
当我们还是小女孩的时候，夏天是属于我们的。那时，我家住在田纳西河畔。在那些永
无尽头、一天天彼此交融的湿润夏日里，我们撒野地跑着。我们在长长的日子中放任自己，
没有学校的管束，没有规则的羁绊，没有双亲的训诫，没有既定的观念，只有属于我们自己
的幻想。我和姐姐，我们都是好女孩。没有什么需要我们去对抗和反叛的。这就是我们的生
活，我们知道夏日正长，而且是属于我们的。
我家门前的那条路是一条单车道的乡间小路。每天早上，父母上班以后，我会等着女邮
差把车停在我们的信箱前。有时候，我会在大口玻璃瓶的瓶盖里放上够买几张邮票的零钱，
再把它放在信箱里面。我讨厌为这样的交易去麻烦女邮差，这会延长她的工作时间。但我喜
欢让她知道我们家里也有人寄信到外面的世界。
我喜欢赤足走向我家的信箱，在沾着露水的草地上留下脚印。我想象着，足底那湿漉漉
的感觉使我成了一个诗人。除了艾米莉·狄金森的一些作品外，我从来没读过诗。但我想，懂
得这类东西的人一定会赤足踏着晨露走向他们的信箱。
我们用芭比娃娃和旁边院子里的紫色小野花来筹办我们的婚礼游戏。我们是科学家，尝
试牛奶、橙汁和漱口水的混合物。我们吃光一把又一把甜中带苦的巧克力片，把勺子上的花
生酱舔得干干净净。糖果吃完了，我们就从药箱里偷拿有甜味的弗林斯通复合维生素。我们
成了用卡夫通心面和干酪烹制午餐的专家，并尽职尽责地每天给正在上班的妈妈打三个电话
汇报我们的最新情况。但是，我们告诫自己：不要打太多电话，不要说得太大声，也不要在
电话里过多发牢骚，否则他们就会生气了，妈妈就会被解雇，美好的夏日也就完结了。
远离大人们窥视的目光，我们按自己选择的方式安排着生活。我们找出了爸爸的《花花
公子》杂志，让邻家的男孩们付费观看。我们给全县各地的人打神秘电话，对他们说他们赢
得了一辆新车。“什么样的？”他们会问。而我们总是回答：“红的。”我们穿上妈妈班级舞会
时穿的旧礼服，配上手套和帽子，伴着在爸爸的唱机上找到的麦考尔的《护卫队》歌唱。
我们到屋后的树林里远足，从带刺的铁丝篱墙下爬过，穿过缠绕纠结的灌木丛。热气和
湿气透过树叶的罅隙扑上我们绯红的脸颊。每次我们总是会意外地遇到溪流，于是我们就在
其中涉水而行。我们走过被丢弃在远离大路的林中的轿车和汽车部件。我们会一直走到树林
边上，结果意外走进一个奶牛场。我们会倚坐在门上休息，或者摊开四肢躺在露出地面的又
大又平的石灰岩上。这些岩石标志着“屋后树林”的尽头。
有一天，田纳西河沿岸出现了暴风雨。这样的暴风雨让天变得阴沉，也赶走了湿气。刚
开始，一切宁静又安详。空气中带着电流，乍起的风吹出夏日的清爽。我们敞开所有的门
窗，把收音机调到两个镇子之外的古典音乐台，加重低音并把音量开得大大的。我们让风吹
进客厅，让它肆意搅动着我们的夏日。我们让似曾相识的音乐在屋子里轰鸣，我们则在一边
随着音乐飞快地旋转。在风中、在音乐里、在客厅里，我们飞旋。飞旋着，想象自己是诗
人、是舞者、是科学家、是春天里的新娘。
我们飞旋着，想象要是能让一切——雷声、暴雨、狂风以至整个世界——旋入田纳西河
畔的那座房子，我们就能永远活在我们的夏日之梦里。那时，我们还是小女孩。
点击  收听单词发音
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
- 发表评论
-
- 最新评论 进入详细评论页>>
