无尽等待之美

谁说等待是痛苦无奈的体验？其实，等待是人生的一种酝酿：美好岁月如流沙般逝去，在等待中品味此时此刻的点点滴滴，你才能真正享受生活中的每一段时光……

By Madora Kibbe

皇嘉 注

Mothers are the modern-day ladies-in-waiting. We wait nine months for our babies to be born. We wait in offices to hear if our kids need braces, made the honor roll, have detention. We wait at the playground. We wait to hear them come in at night. We wait to hear if they got into college. Mostly, raising kids is a waiting game.

I thought that the waiting was over, now that my kids are in college. But it isn’t. It may never be. After all, there’s waiting for graduation, graduate school, first job, first (and, we hope, only) wedding, first grandchild, and on it goes.

But after so many years of wondering what’s next, and almost missing it when it happens because I was so preoccupied with wondering what’s next, I’ve come to see waiting as a good thing, not passive or wasteful. Waiting can also mean watching and patient expectation of good for someone (like one’s children) and for oneself. Waiting is something all writers need to not only do, but enjoy doing. Ah, there’s the rub . How does one learn to love waiting?

I caught a glimpse of how good waiting can feel two summers ago. I was sitting in a cafe on Bleecker Street in New York City, waiting while my daughter was having an interview for a summer internship . I really didn’t have to be there. My daughter was 19. She could cross the street on her own, without holding my hand. She does look both ways. Most days.

But I was there anyway, because she’d asked me and because I wanted to be there. Because independent young women still need their moms. And moms still need to be needed. I used my waiting time wisely. I wrote, I sipped a cold beverage, and I did a bit of thinking. Not a bad way to spend the day.

Forty-some years ago Joni Mitchell wrote a song called “Tin Angel”. The last line is, “In a Bleecker street cafe/ I found someone to love today.”

I couldn’t get enough of that song when I was 19, when I was my daughter’s age. The song was all about bittersweet romantic love, leaving and losing and changing partners, finding oneself in another. Even back then, after about the 99th time I listened to that lovely tune, I had to say, Come on. Get real. Life is a lot more than falling in love. Life is about finding what you love to do, and doing it well. Life is as much about looking outward as looking inward.

In the years since our son and daughter left home I’ve learned a few things about myself, about the so-called empty nest . First, it’s not so empty. Kids do come back with news of their new worlds, with laundry, with love. Second, I picked a life partner very well. So staying in love is easy. That’s not to say we don’t fight. But staying mad is hard when you’ve married the right person, someone who sees the best in you and demands that you see it, too.

So I’m not 19 anymore (thank goodness) and neither is my daughter. She got that internship, by the way, and now she has an even better one.

But two years ago, when that long-loved song played in my head, underscoring my thoughts about the future—not only my daughter’s future, but mine, too—I realized that, yes, today in a Bleecker Street cafe I found not exactly someone to love, but something, an ineffable thing. Not the past, not the future, not time at all. What I learned that day is that I love now. So the waiting is over; it never really began. You don’t have to wait for the present. It’s a gift. Forever.

The now that was now then is still with me. Now. Another now is on its way. And if I remember that all we have is now, I won’t miss it.

Vocabulary

1. lady-in-waiting: （女王或公主的）女官，女侍臣。

2. braces: 畸齿矫正钢丝架；honor roll: 荣誉名册，光荣榜，指优秀学生名单等；detention: （处罚学生的）课后留校。

3. preoccupied: 全神贯注的，入神的；passive: 消极的，被动的。

4. rub: 困难，障碍。

5. internship: 实习的职务，实习期。

6. sip: 小口地喝，抿；beverage: 饮料（如牛奶、茶、咖啡等）。

7. Joni Mitchell: 琼妮•米切尔，20世纪最伟大的女民谣歌手之一，她的音乐影响了目前很多成功的歌手，她在音乐风格方面不断创新，涉及民谣、摇滚、爵士等众多领域，并且她还是位出色的诗人和画家，1997年她入选“摇滚名人殿堂”。

8. 当我19岁时，也就是在我女儿这个年龄的时候，我还没完全弄明白那首歌。get: 〈口〉懂，理解。

9. bittersweet: 又苦又甜，又苦又乐；partner: 情人，伴侣。

10. empty nest: 〈美〉“空巢”，指子女独立后离家、只剩父母的家庭。

11. 但两年前，当那首长久以来喜爱的歌在我脑海中萦绕时，它让我对未来的想法更为清晰了——不仅是我女儿的未来，还有我自己的——我意识到：的确，今天在布里克街上的一家咖啡馆里，我其实并没有寻到什么要去爱的人，而是某样东西，一种难以言喻的东西。underscore: 强调，使更为清楚；ineffable: 言语难以表达的，不可言喻的。

（来源：英语学习杂志 编辑：丹妮）