But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me?

可是假使因为自我选择或者嫌恶使然，你并未加入这种家庭延续的循环过程，那会有什么结果？你若出走，会有什么结果？家庭聚会时，你该坐在哪里？你如何看着时光流逝，却不用担心你只是在挥霍人生在世的时间，与任何人都无关联？你必须找到另一个目标，另一种方法，藉以判断你是不是成功的人类我爱小孩，但假使我膝下无子呢？这让我成为哪一种人？

Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course."Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.

吴尔芙写道剑影投射在女人广大的生命中。她说，这把剑的一端是习俗、传统和秩序，符合准则的一切。而剑的另一端——假使你够疯狂而想去跨越它，选择离经叛道的生活——则是杂乱无章，悖离常轨的一切。她的论点是，跨越剑影或许能给女人带来更为有趣的人生，却肯定更充满危险。

I'm lucky that at least I have my writing. This is something people can understand. Ah, she left her marriage in order to preserve her art. That's sort of true, though not completely so. A lot of writers have families. Toni Morrison, just to name an example, didn't let the raising of her son stop her from winning a little trinket we call the Nobel Prize. But Toni Morrison made her own path, and I must make mine. The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.

幸运的是，至少我有写作的生活。这是大家能够了解的事情。啊，她摆脱婚姻是为了保有自己的艺术。这有几分正确，却不完全正确。许多作家都拥有家庭 。举例来说，托妮•摩里森（Toni Morrison）并未因为抚养儿子而未能获得诺贝尔文学奖。但摩里森走她自己的路，而我必须走我自己的路。古印度瑜伽文献《薄伽梵歌》（Bhagavad Gita）说，过你自己不完美的命运，好过模仿他人过完美的人生。因此我现在开始过自己的人生。或许看起来残缺别脚，却彻彻底底像我。

Anyway, I bring all this up only to admit that—in comparison to my sister's existence, to her home and to her good marriage and to her children—I'm looking pretty unstable these days. I don't even have an address, and that's kind of a crime against normality at this ripe old age of thirty-four. Even at this very moment, all my belongings are stored in Catherine's home and she's given me a temporary bedroom on the top floor of her house (which we call "The Maiden Aunt's Quarters," as it includes a garret window through which I can stare out at the moors while dressed in my old wedding gown, grieving my lost youth). Catherine seems to be fine with this arrangement, and it's certainly convenient for me, but I'm wary of the danger that if I drift about this world randomly for too long, I may someday become The Family Flake. Or it may have already happened. Last summer, my five-year-old niece had a little friend over to my sister's house to play. I asked the child when her birthday was. She told me it was January 25.

总之，我之所以谈论这些原因，只是想承认——相较于我姐姐的人生，她的家庭、幸福婚姻、她的孩子——这些日子以来的我，看起来颇不稳定。我甚至没有固定住址，在这三十四岁的成熟年纪，这是违反常态的罪行。甚至在眼前此刻，我所有的家当仍存放在凯瑟琳家中，她在她家给我一间顶楼的临时卧室（我们称之为未婚阿姨的厢房，因为卧室里有个阁楼窗户，让我能穿上昔日的结婚礼服凝望窗外的原野，哀悼自己失去的青春）。凯瑟琳对这个安排似乎并无异议，而对我来说确实也很方便，然而我必须提防的是，假使我在世间漂流太久，某天很可能成为家庭怪人。或许这已经发生。去年夏天，我五岁的侄子和朋友在院子里玩，我问这孩子她的生日是哪一天。她说一月二十五日。

"Uh-oh!" I said. "You're an Aquarius! I've dated enough Aquarians to know that they are trouble."

喔喔！我说，你是宝瓶座！我跟不少宝瓶座约过会，知道他们很让人头痛。

Both the five-year-olds looked at me with bewilderment and a bit of fearful uncertainty. I had a sudden horrifying image of the woman I might become if I'm not careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The divorcée in the muumuu with the dyed orange hair who doesn't eat dairy but smokes menthols, who's always just coming back from her astrology cruise or breaking up with her aroma-therapist boyfriend, who reads the Tarot cards of kindergarteners and says things like, "Bring Aunty Liz another wine cooler, baby, and I'll let you wear my mood ring. . . ."

两个五岁的孩子一头雾水地看着我。我突然惊觉到，我若不谨慎点，很可能成为：小莉怪阿姨。身穿夏威夷洋装、头发染成橘红色的离婚妇人，不吃乳制品，只抽薄荷烟，永远刚搭完星座游轮回来 或刚和香薰治疗师男友分手，一边读塔罗牌，一边说好孩子，再给小莉阿姨拿个冰酒桶来，就让你戴我的情绪戒指……之类的话。

Eventually I may have to become a more solid citizen again, I'm aware of this. But not yet . . . please. Not just yet.

Eat, Pray, Love

我深知，最终我必须再一次成为体面的市民。可是时候未到……拜托拜托，暂时还不行。