誰說等待是痛苦無奈的體驗？其實，等待是人生的一種醞釀：美好歲月如流沙般逝去，在等待中品味此時此刻的點點滴滴，你才能真正享受生活中的每一段時光……

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: 畸齒矯正鋼絲架；honor roll: 榮譽名冊，光榮榜，指優秀學生名單等；detention: （處罰學生的）課后留校。

3. preoccupied: 全神貫注的，入神的；passive: 消極的，被動的。

4. rub: 困難，障礙。

5. internship: 實習的職務，實習期。

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

7. Joni Mitchell: 瓊妮?米切爾，20世紀最偉大的女民謠歌手之一，她的音樂影響了目前很多成功的歌手，她在音樂風格方面不斷創新，涉及民謠、搖滾、爵士等眾多領域，并且她還是位出色的詩人和畫家，1997年她入選“搖滾名人殿堂”。

8. 當我19歲時，也就是在我女兒這個年齡的時候，我還沒完全弄明白那首歌。get: 〈口〉懂，理解。

9. bittersweet: 又苦又甜，又苦又樂；partner: 情人，伴侶。

10. empty nest: 〈美〉“空巢”，指子女獨立后離家、只剩父母的家庭。

11. 但兩年前，當那首長久以來喜愛的歌在我腦海中縈繞時，它讓我對未來的想法更為清晰了——不僅是我女兒的未來，還有我自己的——我意識到：的確，今天在布里克街上的一家咖啡館里，我其實并沒有尋到什么要去愛的人，而是某樣東西，一種難以言喻的東西。underscore: 強調，使更為清楚；ineffable: 言語難以表達的，不可言喻的。

（來源：英語學習雜志 編輯：丹妮）