《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 6 (11):分手以後

Oh, but it wasn't all bad, those few years . . .

但那幾年也並非全是壞事……

Because God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies (or however the old adage goes), some wonderful things did happen to me in the shadow of all that sorrow. For one thing, I finally started learning Italian. Also, I found an Indian Guru. Lastly, I was invited by an elderly medicine man to come and live with him in Indonesia.

因爲當神把門往你臉上摔的時候，也會打開一盒女童軍餅乾（管它諺語怎麼說）；在這些哀傷的陰影之中，我也遇到一些美妙的事情。首先，我終於開始學意大利語。此外，我找到一位印度精神導師。最後還有，一位老藥師邀我去印尼同住。

I'll explain in sequence.

讓我依序說明。

To begin with, things started to look up somewhat when I moved out of David's place in early 2002 and found an apartment of my own for the first time in my life. I couldn't afford it, since I was still paying for that big house in the suburbs which nobody was living in anymore and which my husband was forbidding me to sell, and I was still trying to stay on top of all my legal and counseling fees . . . but it was vital to my survival to have a One Bedroom of my own. I saw the apartment almost as a sanatorium, a hospice clinic for my own recovery. I painted the walls in the warmest colors I could find and bought myself flowers every week, as if I were visiting myself in the hospital. My sister gave me a hot water bottle as a housewarming gift (so I wouldn’t have to be all alone in a cold bed) and I slept with the thing laid against my heart every night, as though nursing a sports injury.

首先，我在2002年初搬離大衛家，這輩子頭一次找到屬於自己的公寓時，情況開始稍有好轉。但我付不起租金，因爲我仍在支付郊區大房子的貸款，雖然房子裏已無人居住，可是我先生不許我賣掉，此外還有訴訟費和諮詢費……但擁有自己的套房公寓，對我的存活至關重要。這公寓像我的療養院，一間使我康復的收容所。我把牆壁粉刷成我能找到的最溫暖的顏色，每個禮拜給自己買花，彷彿去醫院探望自己。我的姐姐送我一個熱水袋做喬遷禮物（讓我無須獨自睡在冷冰冰的牀上），讓我每天晚上擱在心口上，好比護士照料運動傷害患者。

David and I had broken up for good. Or maybe we hadn't. It's hard to remember now how many times we broke up and joined up over those months. But there emerged a pattern: I would separate from David, get my strength and confidence back, and then (attracted as always by my strength and confidence) his passion for me would rekindle. Respectfully, soberly and intelligently, we would discuss "trying again," always with some sane new plan for minimizing our apparent incompatibilities. We were so committed to solving this thing. Because how could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after? It had to work. Didn't it? Reunited with fresh hopes, we'd share a few deliriously happy days together. Or sometimes even weeks. But eventually David would retreat from me once more and I would cling to him (or I would cling to him and he would retreat—we never could figure out how it got triggered) and I’d end up destroyed all over again. And he’d end up gone.

大衛和我永遠分手了。或許也沒有。如今已記不清那幾個月來，我們分分合合多少次。但出現一種模式：我離開大衛，找回自己的力量和信心，而之後（他向來被我的力量和信心所吸引）他對我的熱情又重新燃起。我們慎重、清醒而明智地討論“再試一次”，總是實行某種合情合理的新計劃，減少彼此明顯的不相容處。我們努力解決這件事。因爲兩個如此相愛的人，最後怎麼可能不過着幸福快樂的日子呢？非行得通不可，不是嗎？我們懷着新希望重聚，共享幾天欣喜若狂的日子。有時甚至幾個星期。然而最終，大衛再一次退避，於是我又一次纏住他（或者我先纏住他，於是他避開我——我們從來搞不清楚是怎麼引起的），然後我又一次被摧毀。最後他離我而去。

David was catnip and kryptonite to me.

大衛是我的貓草，我的U形鎖。

But during those periods when we were separated, as hard as it was, I was practicing living alone. And this experience was bringing a nascent interior shift. I was beginning to sense that—even though my life still looked like a multi-vehicle accident on the New Jersey Turnpike during holiday traffic—I was tottering on the brink of becoming a self-governing individual. When I wasn't feeling suicidal about my divorce, or suicidal about my drama with David, I was actually feeling kind of delighted about all the compartments of time and space that were appearing in my days, during which I could ask myself the radical new question: "What do you want to do, Liz?"

但是在我們分開期間，儘管艱難，我卻學着獨自生活。而此種經驗帶來了新興的內在變化。我開始感覺到——儘管我的生活仍像是假日交通時段的高速公路連環車禍——我正顫顫巍巍地逐漸成爲自治的個體。當我對我的離婚不再有自殺的念頭時，當我對我和大衛之間的事件也不再有自殺的想法時，我居然對出現在生命中的時間和空間感到歡喜，讓我得以在其中自問“小莉，你想做什麼”這個全新的問題。

Most of the time (still so troubled from bailing out of my marriage) I didn't even dare to answer the question, but just thrilled privately to its existence. And when I finally started to answer, I did so cautiously. I would only allow myself to express little baby-step wants. Like:

在大多數時候（我仍對自己逃出婚姻感到心神不安），我根本不敢問這個問題，只是私底下激動地發現其存在。而當我終於開始回答時，我十分謹慎。 我只容許自己表達初級的需要。像是：

I want to go to a Yoga class.

我想上瑜伽課。

I want to leave this party early, so I can go home and read a novel.

我想離開這場派對，早點回家讀小說。

I want to buy myself a new pencil box.

我想給自己買新鉛筆盒。

Then there would always be that one weird answer, same every time:

還有一個屢試不爽的奇特回答：

I want to learn how to speak Italian.

我想學意大利語。