Experiments In Aloneness
I knew, for a day, a man named Terry who had murdered two people in cold blood 20 years ago. He had served his sentence and was on parole. Terry had shockingly red hair that matched his sideburns and impressively cartoonish handlebar mustache. He laughed a lot and talked a bit like how I imagine a cowboy would talk. His eyes were cold.我认识一位名叫特里的男子有一段日子了，20年前他蓄意而残忍地谋害了两条人命。服完刑之后，他获得保释。特里有一头异常诡异的红色头发，这与他的连鬓胡子和醒目的卡通似的翘八字胡相映成趣。他时常放声大笑，讲话的样子与我想象中的牛仔风范颇有几分相似。
I asked Terry what he likes to do in his free time and he was quiet for a long time, staring indiscriminately at a crack in the ceiling and unfolding his arms.
我问特里他在业余时间喜欢做什么，他沉默了好久，他不分青红皂白地盯着天花板上的一处裂缝，展开双臂。
“I go fishing, ” he finally told me. “Fishing, it’s good. It’s good for ya. Everything these days is about goin’ fast but fishing’s stayed the same. It makes you slow down. You go up there with a good buddy and it makes ya deal with the shit you don’t wanna deal with. It makes you think about things you didn’t even know you were ignoring.” He pronounced ‘shit’ in two syllables: ‘shi-yet.’
“我去钓鱼，”他最终对我说道。“钓鱼，挺不错的。这对你很有益处。如今，一切都在发生着日新月异的变化，不过钓鱼依然如故。它能令你放缓脚步。你和一位老兄爬到山顶，你必须得克服自己不想应付的麻烦。它令你思索你潜意识里已经忽落的事情。”
“Ya go fishing and come to terms with yourself. You don’t even have to bait the hook.”
“你去钓鱼，自娱自乐即可。你甚至都不必指望有鱼上钩。”
We try so hard to maintain stony stillness, to not be touched by the people we come across. We weigh and compare our options, we act like we have a choice in who we allow to shape us, mold us. You get in the shower and you scrub, you scrub yourself raw, but the fingerprints are still there. You can’t help it. Why are we so afraid of these marks that stay, anyway?
我们拼命地保持古井无波的心境，力求不被我们遇到的人所打动。我们对自己的选择进行权衡比较，举止就像我们可以选择允许谁改变塑造自己一样。你走进浴室洗澡，卖力揉搓，直至把自己擦伤，但是指纹却依旧留在那里。你无能为力。你究竟为何对遗留的痕迹感到如此恐惧呢？
Before I left home, I used to sneak out at two in the morning and meet Hunter by the park down the street. We’d roam the night aimlessly, somehow always ending up at the only 24-hour diner within walking distance for the best strawberry milkshakes in town. And on our way home, we’d have the entire sky to ourselves. With Los Angeles just on the horizon, the night sky is the color of dirty milk, drinking in and oozing with all the light from here to kingdom come. There are no stars to wish upon in a man-made sky, so we’d make do with the hefty 747’s that blinked past, a perpetual meteor shower. I believed in it like nothing else, I’d believed in him like nothing else. Consequently, when Hunter grew up and away, all the jet-planes and aero-planes and all other-planes flew up and away, becoming what they were. What they’ve been all along.
离开家之前，我常常在凌晨两点钟偷偷溜出去，同汉特在街边公园碰面。我们走在茫茫夜幕之中，漫无目的地闲逛，不知何故总是在一天24小时营业的餐厅旁便刹住脚步，而这里离镇上最好的草莓奶昔店只有几步之遥。在回家的路上，我们可以尽情享受整片星空。当洛杉矶天边露出一线曙光之时，夜空呈现淡淡的牛奶色，吸收和散发从这里到天国的所有光芒。人造的天空中没有可供许愿的星星，所以我们只好对着一架一闪而过的硕大波音747，把它当做永恒的流星雨许下心中的愿望。我相信它无可比拟，我相信他也是举世无双的。结果，待到汉克长大离开之后，所有的喷气式飞机、航空飞机和其他类型的飞机在空中飞来飞去，我却对它们熟视无睹，那种特别的感觉一去不复返。它们至始至终都是如此。
Love somebody. Don’t ever love anybody. We’re playing tug-of-war with ourselves and we wonder how we end up in this awkward in between. You wake up in a stranger’s bed and sneak out of his apartment, hating him to keep from hating yourself, and all the while wishing for touch, for closeness. Wishing you could have what you won’t let yourself have.
爱一个人。永远不要爱上任何人。理智与渴望在心底激烈拔河，我们想知道该如何走出这种尴尬的两难境地。你在一个陌生人的床上醒来，悄悄溜出他的公寓，把对自己的憎恨之情转嫁到他身上从而让自己心里好过些，而你却一直以来都渴望着触摸，期盼亲密感。但愿你能得到自己理智不容许触碰的东西。
The candle burned, gin and rosewater, playing a funny picture show on my royal purple coverlet. The patterns on my bedspread started moving, traveling away from consciousness, from being noticed. A string of Indonesian flower lights were our only source of brightness, but we emanated our own warmth, our own vibrancy.
浪漫迷离的烛光，醇香可口的杜松子酒，芬芳诱人的玫瑰香水，我的皇家紫色被单上正上演着一幕有趣的电影画面。我床单上的图案开始舞动，理智渐渐模糊直至完全迷失。印尼饰品发出的一束光是我们唯一的光源，但是我们浑身散发出火热的气息，激情一触即发。
“When I was 14, I went to summer camp.”
“14岁那年，我去了夏令营。”
“Who didn’t?”
“谁又没去过呢？”
“No, but I went to summer camp with a bunch of Buddhist monks, in this really woodsy area of Massachusetts. That’s back when I would smoke a lot of weed in the forest.”
“是的，不过我是和一群僧徒一起去的，就在马萨诸塞州这个丛林遍布的地区。那里遥远偏僻，我在森林里可以尽情燃起一大堆篝火。”
“Buddhist monks?”
“僧徒？”
“Yeah, it was really interesting. They don’t talk, you know? Quiet is the best way I can describe it, but it’s amazing how different everything is if you don’t talk and you aren’t talked at.”
“对，真的很有趣。你知道吗，他们都不怎么讲话？安静是他们最真实的写照，不过倘若你不讲话，而且别人也不与你交谈，一切变得异常诡异。”
“How so?”
“为何会如此？”
“Well, first of all, they take a lot of time doing things. Like eating. They eat for such a freakin’ long time, each meal takes like an hour.” I laughed. He shook his head like a lion would shake his mane in exasperation.
“首先，他们慢条斯理地做着事。比如吃饭，他们吃饭磨蹭好长一段时间，吃完每顿饭大概需要一个小时。”我笑了起来，他恼怒地使劲摇头，像一头拼命摇晃鬃毛的狮子一般。
“But they don’t talk, they just chew a lot. And they think about what they’re eating. And they taste it, you know? They really taste it.” “We don’t do that very often, ” I agreed.
“但是他们不讲话，只是默默地细嚼慢咽。他们思考着自己在吃什么。你知道吗，他们还品尝一下味道？他们真的是细细地品尝着。”“我们平常吃饭都不会如此，”我赞同道。
“I know, right. But they’re doing something right, because when you slow things down, your life changes. One time, and I remember this so well, but one time I was playing basketball with a bunch of them. Five on five. It was a really good game, I think we were playing to eleven or something but it was ten against nine, my team was losing. And this monk on the other team was playing in his robes, it was ridiculous. He was going up for a layup and I was guarding him. I figured no problem, right, this monk in his robes. But then out of nowhere he jumped, and I saw all the fabric and layers of his robe ripple, like literally ripple, and the next thing I know he tomahawk dunks the ball. I got dunked on by this guy. It was so bad, but it was so funny, and it was so good, too.” The boy laughed and his face, illuminated by tea lights and the unstable flame of the candle, lit up. “Man, I got dunked on by this monk in a robe.”
“我懂，是吧！但是他们在做正确的事情，因为倘若放慢步伐，你的生活就会发生变化。只有一件事情我至今还记忆犹新，那便是我和这群僧徒一起打篮球的情景。这是五对五的篮球赛，堪称一场精彩的比赛，我以为我们将会得到11分，而实际上是10比9，我们队即将败阵。另一队的这名僧徒竟然穿着僧袍上球场，实在荒唐至极。他准备跃身单手投篮，而我则对他展开防卫。我丝毫不以为意，这个僧徒穿着僧袍，对付他还不是易如反掌。然而他突然弹跳起来，我看到他袍子的所有面料和褶皱波动起来，就像真正的波纹一样，随即我才意识到他扣篮成功。这家伙就在当着我的面顺利投篮。真是太糟糕了，但是却又滑稽可笑，同时也精彩无比。”这个男孩舒心地笑了起来，他的面孔在茶灯和摇曳的烛火照耀下，显得神采奕奕、容光焕发。“老兄，我竟然被一个穿着袍子的僧徒扣篮了。”
Sometimes, experiments in aloneness are what it takes for you to realize how much that thing he said, or the way she did that, changed you — changed the way you look at things, changed what you wish for when you are making wishes by yourself. Why are you alone? Is it because you have to be, or is it because you chose to be?
有时候，我们需要体验孤独感，方能明白他所说的那件事或者她的做事风格对我们的改变究竟有多大——改变了你看待事物的角度，改变了你独自许愿之时所许下的愿望。为何你独自一人？是因为你情非得已，还是因为你自己做出这样的选择？
Three in the morning in Paris, 2012
2012年巴黎凌晨三点钟
There is a special kind of glitz and glam, of romanticism, to lonely wanderlust. This is especially true if you are young. But, all of that aside, when reality forms cold, steel substantiality from your superfluous imagination, you will find that three in the morning is the same, be it in Paris or Los Angeles. You’ll maybe wax poetic and order glass after glass of red wine in your broken French until even red wine can’t wash the bitter taste of aloneness from your mouth. Because all the beautiful things you discover will stay with you in the form of private, unspeakable memories documented by meaningless pictures here and there. But you will not have another human being to seek out and remember with. Your memories, when made alone, will never be communicable.
孤独者的漫游癖，具有一种特别的绚烂浮华，洋溢着浪漫主义色彩。如果你还年轻，这种感觉就格外强烈。但是，除却这些，当现实铸就冰冷坚硬的实体从而扼杀你的想象力之时，你会发现无论是在巴黎还是洛杉矶，凌晨三点钟都毫无二致。你或许会思绪万千，讲着蹩脚的法语，红酒续了一杯又一杯，直至即便是红酒也无法冲掉你口中的苦涩孤独感之时方才罢休。因为你发现的所有美好事物都以无法言喻的私人回忆涌现出来，并与你如影随形，这些回忆由无意义的散乱画面记录而成。
You will wander the streets of a rainy Parisian Thursday night and remember things.
在巴黎一个周四的雨夜，你漫步在街头，心中浮想联翩。
You remember: Ray Bradbury once talked about three in the morning, that it is the time when the soul is most vulnerable. You remember: Ray Bradbury died last week. You remember: the last person to break your heart spoke better French than you. Your life will make less sense; you’ll start to wish you’d stuck it out with your Creative Writing major instead of switching to politics, of all things. But what you’ll think about most is why you are in Paris, alone. This will keep you from returning to the hotel room you paid for, because if you stay awake, the night will never be spent. Sooner than you think you’ll watch the dawn rob the stars from the sky.
你记得：雷·布莱伯利曾经谈论过凌晨3点钟正是心灵最脆弱的时刻。你记得：雷·布莱伯利上周去世了。你记得：上一个令你伤心的人法语讲得比你地道。你的生活会缺乏意义；你会开始渴望坚持完成你的创意写作专业，而不是切换到政治学科或者其他专业。但是你为何独自一人呆在巴黎，这一思绪会攻占你的心头。你会因此踌躇不前，不敢回到自己下榻的宾馆，因为如果你一直保持清醒的话，将会虚度整个夜晚。还来不及细细思索，你将会观看繁星落尽、黎明降临的壮丽景观。
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