《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 30 (64):過離經叛道的生活

But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me?

可是假使因爲自我選擇或者嫌惡使然，你並未加入這種家庭延續的循環過程，那會有什麼結果？你若出走，會有什麼結果？家庭聚會時，你該坐在哪裏？你如何看着時光流逝，卻不用擔心你只是在揮霍人生在世的時間，與任何人都無關聯？你必須找到另一個目標，另一種方法，藉以判斷你是不是成功的人類我愛小孩，但假使我膝下無子呢？這讓我成爲哪一種人？

Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course."Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.

吳爾芙寫道“劍影投射在女人廣大的生命中。”她說，這把劍的一端是習俗、傳統和秩序，“符合準則的一切”。而劍的另一端——假使你夠瘋狂而想去跨越它，選擇離經叛道的生活——則是“雜亂無章，悖離常軌的一切”。她的論點是，跨越劍影或許能給女人帶來更爲有趣的人生，卻肯定更充滿危險。

I'm lucky that at least I have my writing. This is something people can understand. Ah, she left her marriage in order to preserve her art. That's sort of true, though not completely so. A lot of writers have families. Toni Morrison, just to name an example, didn't let the raising of her son stop her from winning a little trinket we call the Nobel Prize. But Toni Morrison made her own path, and I must make mine. The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.

幸運的是，至少我有寫作的生活。這是大家能夠了解的事情。啊，她擺脫婚姻是爲了保有自己的藝術。這有幾分正確，卻不完全正確。許多作家都擁有家庭 。舉例來說，託妮•摩裏森（Toni Morrison）並未因爲撫養兒子而未能獲得諾貝爾文學獎。但摩裏森走她自己的路，而我必須走我自己的路。古印度瑜伽文獻《薄伽梵歌》（Bhagavad Gita）說，過你自己不完美的命運，好過模仿他人過完美的人生。因此我現在開始過自己的人生。或許看起來殘缺別腳，卻徹徹底底像我。

Anyway, I bring all this up only to admit that—in comparison to my sister's existence, to her home and to her good marriage and to her children—I'm looking pretty unstable these days. I don't even have an address, and that's kind of a crime against normality at this ripe old age of thirty-four. Even at this very moment, all my belongings are stored in Catherine's home and she's given me a temporary bedroom on the top floor of her house (which we call "The Maiden Aunt's Quarters," as it includes a garret window through which I can stare out at the moors while dressed in my old wedding gown, grieving my lost youth). Catherine seems to be fine with this arrangement, and it's certainly convenient for me, but I'm wary of the danger that if I drift about this world randomly for too long, I may someday become The Family Flake. Or it may have already happened. Last summer, my five-year-old niece had a little friend over to my sister's house to play. I asked the child when her birthday was. She told me it was January 25.

總之，我之所以談論這些原因，只是想承認——相較於我姐姐的人生，她的家庭、幸福婚姻、她的孩子——這些日子以來的我，看起來頗不穩定。我甚至沒有固定住址，在這三十四歲的成熟年紀，這是違反常態的罪行。甚至在眼前此刻，我所有的家當仍存放在凱瑟琳家中，她在她家給我一間頂樓的臨時臥室（我們稱之爲“未婚阿姨的廂房”，因爲臥室裏有個閣樓窗戶，讓我能穿上昔日的結婚禮服凝望窗外的原野，哀悼自己失去的青春）。凱瑟琳對這個安排似乎並無異議，而對我來說確實也很方便，然而我必須提防的是，假使我在世間漂流太久，某天很可能成爲“家庭怪人”。或許這已經發生。去年夏天，我五歲的侄子和朋友在院子裏玩，我問這孩子她的生日是哪一天。她說一月二十五日。

"Uh-oh!" I said. "You're an Aquarius! I've dated enough Aquarians to know that they are trouble."

“喔喔！”我說，“你是寶瓶座！我跟不少寶瓶座約過會，知道他們很讓人頭痛。”

Both the five-year-olds looked at me with bewilderment and a bit of fearful uncertainty. I had a sudden horrifying image of the woman I might become if I'm not careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The divorcée in the muumuu with the dyed orange hair who doesn't eat dairy but smokes menthols, who's always just coming back from her astrology cruise or breaking up with her aroma-therapist boyfriend, who reads the Tarot cards of kindergarteners and says things like, "Bring Aunty Liz another wine cooler, baby, and I'll let you wear my mood ring. . . ."

兩個五歲的孩子一頭霧水地看着我。我突然驚覺到，我若不謹慎點，很可能成爲：小莉怪阿姨。身穿夏威夷洋裝、頭髮染成橘紅色的離婚婦人，不吃乳製品，只抽薄荷煙，永遠剛搭完星座遊輪回來 或剛和香薰治療師男友分手，一邊讀塔羅牌，一邊說“好孩子，再給小莉阿姨拿個冰酒桶來，就讓你戴我的情緒戒指……”之類的話。

Eventually I may have to become a more solid citizen again, I'm aware of this. But not yet . . . please. Not just yet.

Eat, Pray, Love

我深知，最終我必須再一次成爲體面的市民。可是時候未到……拜託拜託，暫時還不行。