The Most Loved Place至愛之地

By Margaret Laurence

The most loved place, for me, in this country has in fact been many places.

在這個國家里我最喜歡的地方其實一直有很多。

It has changed throughout the years, as I and my circumstances have changed. I haven’t really lost any of the best places from the past, though. I may no longer inhabit them, but they inhabit me, portions of memory, presences in the mind...My best place at the moment is very different, although I guess it has some of the attributes of that long-ago place.

這些年來，由于我們自己和情況的變遷，我最愛的地方也隨著改變。雖然如此，過去我喜愛過的任何一個地方我并沒有真正地失去它們。我或許不再居住在那兒，但它們卻存在于我的心里，成為我記憶中的片段，時常浮現在腦海中……此刻我最喜愛的地方相當不同，但我想它仍具有和老早的那個地方(即明湖，Clear Lake)相同的某些特質。

It is a small cedar cabin on the Otonabee river in southern Ontario. I’ve lived three summers there, writing, birdwatching, riverwatching. I sometimes feel sorry for the people in speedboats who spend their weekends zinging up and down the river at about a million miles an hour. For all they’re able to see, the riverbanks might just as well be green concrete and the river itself flowing with molten plastic.

這個地方是安大略省南方奧托拿比河邊的一間松木小屋。我在那兒居住了三個夏天：寫作、賞鳥、觀河。有時候我為那些來此地度周末，卻駕著快艇以極速在河上往來呼嘯的人感到難過，因為這些人看見的河岸只不過是綠色的混凝土岸，而河流本身也仿佛只是條閃亮的流動塑料。