My Secret Predawn Rite 翻译

The message that comes through over and over is that although there are times in any life when things seem to be proceeding step by logical step, the whole is mostly random and askew. Life, as every biography and obit I have ever read confirms, is what happens when you are making other plans.
My Secret Predawn Rite
Time was in my life when the dawn happened to other people. I was definitely not a morning person; I associated the sunrise with long plane flights across many time zones and groggy strolls around strange cities waiting for my hotel room to become available. Then I had children, and the first light took on new meaning. Sometimes it was the sigh at the end of a fretful night up with a feverish baby; or the opposite, the joyous cry of an exuberant 3-year-old eager to get the day going. It wan only later, when mornings were taken over by the getting-to-school frenzy, that I discovered the serenity of the surprisingly fast transition from night to day. For the small price of 15 minutes of sleep I could buy 15 minutes of solitary peace--- with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Given the tidbit of time at my disposal, I developed the habit of skimming the paper, which quickly came down to a surreptitious and almost superstitious ritual of checking out obituaries.
(By Suzanne B. Levine from Newsweek, August, 4, 1997)
My Secret Predawn Rite
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黎明前的秘密仪式
我生命中的一段时光是与黎明无缘的。我绝不是一个能早起的人。一说到黎明，我就会想到漫长的飞机旅途，在跨越几个时区抵达目的地后，偏偏预定的房间还未腾出，只能拖着疲惫的双脚，在陌生的城市中漫无目的地游走。后来我有了小孩，这束晨曦便有了新的意义。有时候，小宝贝发烧，整晚忧心忡忡，黎明在一声叹息中到来；有时候，干劲十足的三岁毛孩迫不及待地要开始新的一天，迎接黎明的便是欢呼声。直到后来，清晨变成了手忙脚乱送孩子上学的时刻，我才发现黑白交替的时光如此安静。却如同白驹过隙。不妨少睡15分钟，换取一刻钟的安静独处——品品咖啡，翻翻报纸，何其惬意。由于可以支配的时间有限，我便养成了翻阅报纸的习惯，而且喜欢偷偷地翻阅讣告，几乎是难以自禁地，如同是一种迷信般的仪式。
起初，我认为是因为年纪大了（当时已是不惑之年），于是我不无悲哀地认为这是一种病态心理。但是，若真如此，我为什么那么乐在其中呢？日复一日，年复一年，这习惯始终陪伴着我。直到有一天我突然明白，我这么做并不是对死亡耿耿于怀，而是为了探索生命，寻找生命的真谛。讣告如实记录下逝者人生轨迹上重要的经历，而没有妄加评述。闪光点是不难挖掘的——普利策奖得主不无诙谐地说，一得奖他们就知道自己讣告的标题是什么了。然而，我更倾向于在字里行间捕捉人生中失意以及平淡的时刻，莫名转变的心意，曲折迂回传达的是，虽然有时候人生发展看似一步一步地颇有条理，但总的来说，人生是曲折难料的。每一本传记，每一则讣告都毫无例外地印证，人生上演的是你计划之外的一幕。
At first I attributed this new habit to advancing age---I had recently turned 40---and glumly concluded that I was becoming morbid. But why, then, was I finding my secret rite so uplifting? Finally, after many years of starting the day this way, I have figured out that I am doing it not to obsess about death but to find out about life. Real life. Obituaries capture the benchmarks of life span without passing judgement or making order out of the events. The high points are easy---Pulitzer Prize winners joke that as soon as they are named they know what the headline is going to be on theirobituary---but I read most attentively for clues to the defeats and the flatline periods, the inexplicable changes of heart and the twists of fate, the gambles and the unexpected consequences, the loose ends……