All Flowers Are Beautiful (II)

⊙ By Suzanne Chazin翻译：蓝蓝

All Flowers Are Beautiful (II)

⊙ By Suzanne Chazin翻译：蓝蓝

一花独放不是春，百花齐放春满园——你有你的艳丽夺目，我有我的平凡可爱，正因万物之美千姿百态，才构成了我们这个丰富多彩的世界。草木同此理，人亦应如是……

Backstage the night of the performance, I felt nervous. A few minutes before the play, my teacher came over to me. “Your mother asked me to give this to you,” she said, handing me a1)dandelion. Its edges were already beginning to curl, and it2)flopped lazily from its stem. But just looking at it, knowing my mother was out there, and thinking of our lunchtime talk made me proud.

After the play, I took home the flower I had3)stuffed in the apron of my costume. My mother pressed it between two4)sheets of5)paper toweling in a dictionary, laughing as she did it that we were perhaps the only people who would press such a sorry-looking weed.

I often look back on our lunchtimes together, bathed in the soft midday light. They were the commas in my childhood, the pauses that told me life is not6)savored in pre-measured7)increments, but in the sum of daily8)rituals and small pleasures we casually share with loved ones. Over peanut-butter sandwiches and chocolate-chip cookies, I learned that love, first and foremost, means being there for the little things.

A few months ago, my mother came to visit. I9)took off a day from work and treated her to lunch. The restaurant10)bustled with noontime activity as business people made11)deals and glanced at their watches. In the middle of all this sat my mother, now retired, and I. From her face I could see that she12)relished the pace of the work world.

1) dandelion ['dændɪlaɪən] n. 蒲公英

2) fop [flɒp] v. （不由自主地）落下

3) stuff [stʌf] v. 把……塞进

4) sheet [ʃiːt] n. 一片，一张

5) paper toweling 纸巾，也写作paper towel。

6) savor ['seɪvə(r)] v. 尽情享受，品尝

7) increment ['ɪnkrɪmənt] n. 增值，盈余

8) ritual ['rɪtʃʊəl] n. 惯例，例行公事

9) take off 休假，休息

10) bustle with 充满

11) deal [diːl] n. 交易

12) relish ['relɪʃ] v. 喜欢，欣赏

“Mom, you must have been terribly bored staying at home when I was a child,” I said.

“Bored? Housework is boring. But you were never boring.”

I didn’t believe her so I pressed, “Surely children are not as13)stimulating as a career.”

“A career is stimulating,” she said. “I’m glad I had one. But a career is like an open14)balloon. It remains15)inflated only as long as you keep pumping. A child is a seed. You water it. You care for it the best you can. And then it grows all by itself into a beautiful flower.”

Just then, looking at her, I could picture us sitting at her kitchen table once again, and I understood why I kept that16)flaky brown dandelion in our old family dictionary pressed between two17)crumpled bits of paper toweling.

13) stimulating ['stɪmjʊleɪtɪŋ] adj. 有刺激性的，令人兴奋的

14) balloon [bə'luːn] n. 气球

15) infated [ɪn'fleɪtɪd] adj. 充了气的，胀大的

16) faky ['fleɪkɪ] adj. 薄片的，易碎的

17) crumpled ['krʌmpld] adj. 变皱的，弄皱的

I learned that love, frst and foremost, means being there for the little things.

First and foremost是个很常见的插入语，它由first（首先）和foremost（最重要的）两个词组成，从字面上我们就能猜到这个词组的意思是“首要的，比什么都重要”，强调词组后面引出内容的重要性，如：He does a bit of writing, but frst and foremost, he’s a teacher. （他也会写点文章，但他首先是个老师。）

演出当天晚上，我在后台有点紧张。就在开演前的几分钟，老师来到我身边。“你妈妈让我把这个交给你，”她说着就把一朵蒲公英递给我。它的花瓣边缘已经有点卷曲，从花茎上无精打采地耷拉下来。但是一看到它，知道妈妈坐在台下，想起我们午餐时间的谈话，我的心底就涌出了一种自豪感。

演出结束后，我把那朵塞进演出服围裙里的蒲公英带回家。妈妈把它夹在两张纸巾中间，再夹进字典里压干。她一边压花一边笑着说，大概只有我们俩会把这么一株无精打采的杂草做成干花了。

我时常忆起与妈妈在正午的和煦阳光中共进午餐那些日子。它们就像是我童年里的一个个逗号。这些停顿告诉我，体味人生不在于那些预计好的增长量，而在于日常习惯的不断积累，以及在不经意间与亲人分享的小小快乐。透过那些花生酱三明治和碎巧克力曲奇，我认识到，爱的首要意义便是为了相伴经历那些微不足道的事情。

几个月前，妈妈来看我。我请了一天假陪她，与她一起吃午饭。餐馆里一派午间的繁忙景象，众多商界人士有的在做交易，有的不时瞟一眼自己的手表。在忙碌的人群当中，已经退休的妈妈和我坐在那里。从她脸上，我看得出她非常向往这种上班族的快节奏生活。

“妈妈，我小时候你一直就待在家里，一定觉得很烦吧，”我说。

“烦？家务活儿是挺烦人的，但是你永远不会让我觉得烦。”

我不太相信，于是不依不饶地说：“养孩子肯定不像工作那么令人振奋。”

“工作是很令人振奋，”她说。“我也很高兴自己有过一番事业。不过，工作就像一个敞开口的气球，你只有一直给它打气，它才会保持饱满的样子。而小孩就像一颗种子，你给它浇浇水，尽你所能地呵护备至。然后，它就会自己长大，变成一朵美丽的花儿。”

那一刻，注视着这样的妈妈，想象着我们俩回到她的厨房，再次坐在餐桌旁边，我终于明白自己为什么至今仍然珍藏着我们家那本旧字典——那里面有一朵发黑易碎的蒲公英，一直夹在两张皱巴巴的纸巾之间。