《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 18 (34):和自己的對話
Or, rather—here I am. I am in Rome, and I am in trouble. The goons of Depression and Loneliness have barged into my life again, and I just took my last Wellbutrin three days ago. There are more pills in my bottom drawer, but I don't want them. I want to be free of them forever. But I don't want Depression or Loneliness around, either, so I don't know what to do, and I'm spiraling in panic, like I always spiral when I don't know what to do. So what I do for tonight is reach for my most private notebook, which I keep next to my bed in case I'm ever in emergency trouble. I open it up. I find the first blank page. I write:
或者該說——我就在這兒。我在羅馬，陷入麻煩“抑鬱”和“寂寞”兩個暴徒再次闖入我的生活，而我三天前才服了最後一次的“Wellbutrin”。我的底層抽屜還有藥丸，但我不需要它們。我要永遠擺脫它們。但我也不想讓“抑鬱”和“寂寞”賴在身邊，因此不知所措，驚慌得原地打轉；每當我不知所措時，總是原地打轉。因此今晚我要做的事是伸手去拿我的私人筆記本，把它放在我的牀邊，以應付緊急時刻。我打開本子，找到空白頁。
"I need your help."
我寫道：“我需要你的協助。”
Then I wait. After a little while, a response comes, in my own handwriting:
之後我等着。過一會兒，迴應來了，由我親筆寫下：
I'm right here. What can I do for you?
我在這裏。我能爲你做什麼？
And here recommences my strangest and most secret conversation.
最奇特、最隱密的對話就此再度展開。
Here, in this most private notebook, is where I talk to myself. I talk to that same voice I met that night on my bathroom floor when I first prayed to God in tears for help, when something (or somebody) had said, "Go back to bed, Liz." In the years since then, I've found that voice again in times of code-orange distress, and have learned that the best way for me to reach it is written conversation. I've been surprised to find that I can almost always access that voice, too, no matter how black my anguish may be. Even during the worst of suffering, that calm, compassionate, affectionate and infinitely wise voice (who is maybe me, or maybe not exactly me) is always available for a conversation on paper at any time of day or night.
在這本最私人的筆記本中，我和自己展開對話。我跟那一晚在浴室地板首次向神泣訴遇上的同一個聲音講話，當時某個東西（有某個人）開口說：“回牀上去，小莉。”此後的幾年內，我在極端悲痛的時候，再度發現這個聲音，得知與它聯繫的最佳方式即是書面對話。我也驚訝地發現，我幾乎可以隨時取得這個聲音，無論多麼痛苦沮喪。即使在最糟的時刻，那平靜、慈悲、友善、無窮睿智的聲音（可能是我，也可能不完全是我 ）總是在紙上與我對話，無論晝夜。
I've decided to let myself off the hook from worrying that conversing with myself on paper means I'm a schizo. Maybe the voice I am reaching for is God, or maybe it's my Guru speaking through me, or maybe it's the angel who was assigned to my case, or maybe it's my Highest Self, or maybe it is indeed just a construct of my subconscious, invented in order to protect me from my own torment. Saint Teresa called such divine internal voices “locutions”—words from the supernatural that enter the mind spontaneously, translated into your own language and offering you heavenly consolation. I do know what Freud would have said about such spiritual consolations, of course—that they are irrational and "deserve no trust. Experience teaches us that the world is no nursery." I agree—the world isn't a nursery. But the very fact that this world is so challenging is exactly why you sometimes must reach out of its jurisdiction for help, appealing to a higher authority in order to find your comfort.
我決定讓自己不去擔心跟自己在紙上對話是精神分裂症的行爲。或許這伸手可及的聲音是神，或許是透過我開口說話的導師，或是分派給我的天使，或是我的至高自我，或只是潛意識中的某個概念， 爲了保護我自己免受折磨而被創造出來的。泰瑞莎修女將這些神聖的內在聲音稱爲“敘語（locutions）——來自超自然的語詞，自發地進入你的心靈，轉譯成你自己的語言，給予你天堂的慰藉。我知道佛洛伊德對於這種心靈慰藉會怎麼說——毫無理性，而且“不該相信。經驗告訴我們，世界可不是育幼院”。我同意——世界不是育幼院。但正是因爲世界如此複雜，才偶爾需要跳出它的管轄尋求協助，籲請高層權威助你找到安慰。
At the beginning of my spiritual experiment, I didn't always have such faith in this internal voice of wisdom. I remember once reaching for my private notebook in a bitter fury of rage and sorrow, and scrawling a message to my inner voice—to my divine interior comfort—that took up an entire page of capital letters:
在心靈試驗的初期，並非始終對於這種睿智的內在聲音堅信不疑。記得有一回，我既憤怒又悲傷地拿起筆記本，匆匆寫下信息給我的內在聲音——給我神聖的內在慰藉——以大寫字母佔據整個頁面：
"I DO NOT FUCKING BELIEVE IN YOU!!!!!!!!"
我他媽的不相信你！！！！！
