on going home

1、On Going Home回家回家 I am home for my daughters first birthday. By home I do not mean the house in Los Angeles where my husband and I and the baby live, but the place where my family is, in the Central Valley of California. 我回家給女兒過周歲生日。我所說的“家”，并非指丈夫，我和小寶寶在洛杉磯的家，而是指位于加州中央谷地的娘家。 It is a vital although tr

2、oublesome distinction. 這樣區(qū)分，盡管麻煩，卻很重要。 My husband likes my family but is uneasy in their house, because once there I fall into their ways, which are difficult, oblique, deliberately inarticulate, not my husbands ways. 丈夫不是不喜歡我娘家的人，但是在我娘家卻頗不自在。因為我一回去，就染上了娘家人的習(xí)慣，說起話來故意吞吞吐吐、拐彎抹角、令人費解，完全有別于丈夫的習(xí)慣。 Diffic

3、ult: not easy to understand; Someone who is difficult behaves in an unreasonable and unhelpful way. 難相處的 Oblique: not expressed directly or openly, making it difficult to understand. 隱晦的 We live in dusty houses (D-U-S-T, he once wrote with his finger on surfaces all over the house, but no one notice

4、d it) filled with mementos quite without value to him (what could the Canton dessert plates mean to him? How could he have known about the assay scales, why should he care if he did know?), 我們住在灰蒙蒙的屋子里（丈夫曾用手指在落滿灰塵的地方都寫上了“灰塵”兩個大字，只是沒人注意），里面還擺滿了紀(jì)念品，可在丈夫眼里這些東西毫無價值（粵式點心盤對他來說能有什么意義？他怎么可能了解分析天平？即使他了解，他又何必

5、在意？）。 and we appear to talk exclusively about people we know who have been committed to mental hospitals, about people we know who have been booked on drunk-driving charges, and about property, particularly about property, land, price per acre and C-2 zoning and assessments and freeway access. 在他看來，

6、我們好像盡在那談熟人，哪個被送進了精神病院，哪個被控酒后駕車。還談財產(chǎn)，特別是地產(chǎn)、土地和地價，C-2區(qū)制規(guī)劃及評估，還有高速公路的出入口。 Commit sb. to sth. : to order sb. To be sent to a hospital, prison, etc. Book： When a police officer books someone, he or she officially records their name and the offence that they may be charged with. 把記錄在案 My brother does not

7、understand my husbands inability to perceive the advantage in the rather common real-estate transaction known as sale-leaseback, and my husband in turn does not understand why so many of the people he hears about in my fathers house have recently been committed to mental hospitals or booked on drunk

8、-driving charges. 弟弟弄不明白，我丈夫怎么連很平常的“售后回租”這種房地產(chǎn)交易的好處也不懂？丈夫也覺得奇怪，在我娘家為何聽到這么多人最近被送進了精神病院，或是因酒后開車被控？ Nor does he understand that when we talk about sale-leasebacks and right-of-way condemnations we are talking in code about the things we like best, the yellow fields and the cottonwoods and the rivers ri

9、sing and falling and the mountain roads closing when the heavy snow comes in. 其實丈夫不明白，我們談售后回租和依法征用公共用地的時候，是在用娘家人特有的語言談?wù)撟顏韯诺臇|西，像金黃色的田野、棉白楊、時漲時落的河水，以及下大雪時封閉的山路。 right-of-way condemnation: It deals with procedure and the rules of evidence in determining the value of the property involved and the just c

10、ompensation to which the owner of the property is entitled as a result of the taking of all or a part of the property for public use. We miss each others points, have another drink and regard the fire. My brother refers to my husband, in his presence, as Joans husband. Marriage is the classic betray

11、al. 話不投機，索性接著喝酒，默默注視著爐火。弟弟當(dāng)著我丈夫的面，稱他為“瓊的丈夫”。結(jié)婚啊，從古到今，都意味著背叛。 Or perhaps it is not any more. Sometimes I think that those of us who are now in our thirties were born into the last generation to carry the burden of home, to find in family life the source of all tension and drama.或許，現(xiàn)在情況變了。我有時想，我們這些三十幾

12、歲的人，注定成為承擔(dān)“家”的重負、并經(jīng)受家庭生活中種種緊張和沖突的最后一代人。 I had by all objective accounts a normal and a happy family situation, and yet I was almost thirty years old before I could talk to my family on the telephone without crying after I had hung up. 在別人的眼里，無論從哪方面看，我都曾擁有一個“正?！倍靶腋！钡募?。然而，直到將近三十歲以前，我與娘家人通電話后總是要哭鼻子。 W

13、e did not fight. Nothing was wrong. And yet some nameless anxiety colored the emotional charges between me and the place that I came from. 我們沒吵過架，也沒出過岔子。但一絲莫名的憂慮，浸染了我和生我養(yǎng)我的家之間的情感糾葛。 The question of whether or not you could go home again was a very real part of the sentimental and largely literary baggage with whi