倾听先人的声音

阿邱

I believe we are not alone.

Even if I am on the other side of the world from the farmhouse I live in, I still dream of the ancient vines out the window, and the shed out back that my grandfather’s father built in 1870 with eucalyptus trunks. As long as I can recreate these images, I never quite leave home.
I don’t think farming in the same place for six generations is a dead weight that keeps you shackled, doing the identical thing year in and year out. Instead, it is a rare link to others before me, who pruned the same vines and painted the same barn that I have. If those in this house survived the Panic of 1893 or 4)the Great Depression, or bathed with cold water and used an outhouse, then surely I know I can weather high gas prices.
I believe that all of us need some grounding in our modern world of constant moving, buying, selling, meeting and leaving. Some find constancy in religion. Others lean on friends or community for permanence. But we need some daily signposts that we are not novel, not better, not worse from those who came before us.
For me, this house, this farm, these ancient vines are those roots. Although I came into this world alone and will leave alone, I am not alone.
There are ghosts of dozens of conversations in the hallways, stories I remember about buying new plows that now rust in the barnyard and ruined crops from the same vines that we are now harvesting.
I believe all of us are natural links in a long chain of being: I need to know what time of day it is, what season is coming, whether the wind is blowing north or from the east, and if the moon is still full tomorrow night, just as the farmers who came before me did.
The physical world around us changes constantly; human nature does not. We must struggle in our brief existence to find some transcendent meaning during reoccurring heartbreak and disappointment and so find solace in the knowledge that our ancestors have all gone through this before.
You may find all that too intrusive, living with the past as present. I find it exhilarating. I believe there is an old answer for every new problem, that wise whispers of the past are with us to assure us that if we just listen and remember, we are not alone; we have been here before.

阿邱

我相信我们并不孤单。
即使我处身地球的另一端,远离我家农庄,我仍然能梦见窗外那古老的藤蔓,梦见我爷爷的父亲在1870年用桉树建造的棚屋。只要这些影像还在我脑中浮现,我就离家不远。
我不认为六代人在同一地方过着耕种的生活,年复一年地干着同样的活是一种让人喘不过气来的负担。相反,我与这些先人修剪着相同的藤蔓、给同一座谷仓上漆,这是我与他们之间难得的纽带。如果在这间屋子里住过的人能够挺过1893年的金融恐慌或是经济大萧条,能够忍受冷水浴、户外厕所,那么我也肯定能够应付攀升的汽油价格。
我相信在这个现代社会,在不停的迁移、买卖、相聚、分离的生活中,所有人都需要一些寄托。一些人寄情于宗教,另一些人依赖于朋友或社区来寻求安稳,但我们还需要一些日常的标志物提醒我们:我们也和前人一样,并没有更新潮、更好或更糟。
对我来说,这房子、这农庄、这些古老的藤蔓,都是我生活的根基。虽然我孤独地来到这个世界,也将独自离去,但我并不孤单。
在屋里的门廊里回荡着许多旧时的对话,提到一些我记忆犹新的往事,如购买新的犁头——如今已锈蚀在场院中,还有那曾被毁坏的作物,而我们现正在同一个藤架上获得收成。
我相信我们与前人都是人类长长纽带上的不同环节。与以前的农民一样,我需要知道现在是一天里的什么时间,接下来是什么季节,会吹南方还是东风,明晚的月亮是否还是圆的。
我们周围的现实世界在不断地改变,但人类的本性不会变。在短暂的一生中,忧伤及失望会不断出现,我们必须努力找出超越现实的意义,要认识到我们的祖先都经历过了这些生活坎坷,从而得到心灵的慰藉。
你或者会觉得生活中有先人的介入太难接受,但我却发现这很令人振奋。我相信每个新问题都有传统的答案,前人充满智慧的肺腑之言无处不在,只要我们能用心倾听、铭记,我们就不会孤单,因为我们以前也曾有过相同的经历。