We lived on the banks of the Tennessee River, and we owned the summers when we were girls. We ran wild through humid summer days that never ended but only melted one into the other. We floated down rivers of weekdays(1) with no school, no rules , no parents, and no constructs other than our fantasies. We were good girls, my sister(2) and I. We had nothing to rebel against. This was just life as we knew it, and we knew the summers to be long and to be ours.

在還是小女孩的時候，夏天是我們的，那時，我家住在田納西河畔。在那些永無盡頭、一天天彼此交融的濕潤夏日里，我們撒了野地跑著。我們在長長的周日中放任著自己，沒有學校的管束，沒有規則的羈絆，沒有父母的訓誡，沒有既定的觀念，只有屬于我們自己的夢幻。我和姐姐，我們都是好女孩，沒有什么需要我們去對抗和反叛的。這就是我們所知的生活，我們知 道夏日正長，而且是屬于我們的。

the road that ran past our house was a one-lane rural route. Every morning, after our parents had gone to work, I’ d wait for the mail lady to pull up to our box. Some days I would put enough change for a few stamps into a mason jar(3) lid and l eave it in the mailbox. I hated bothering mail lady with this transaction, which made her job take longer. But I liked that she knew that someone in our house sent letters into the outside world.

我家門前的那條路是一條單車道的鄉間小路。每天早上，每天早上，父母上班以后，我會等著女郵差把車停在我們的信箱跟前。有時候，我會在大口玻璃瓶的瓶蓋里放上夠買幾張郵票的零錢，再把它放在信箱里面。我討厭為這樣的交易去麻煩女郵差，這會延長她的工作時間。但我喜歡讓她知道我們家里也有人寄信到外面的世界。

I liked walking to the mailbox in my bare feet and leaving footprints on the dewy grass. I imagined that feeling the wetness on the bottom of my feet made me a poet. I had never read poetry, outside of some Emily Dickinson(4). But I imagined th at people who knew of such things would walk to their mailboxes through the morning dew in their bare feet.

我喜歡赤足走向我家的信箱，在沾著露水的草地上留下腳印。我想像著，足底濕漉漉的感覺使我成了一個詩人。除了艾米莉·狄金森的一些作品外，我其實從不讀詩。但是我想，懂得這類東西的人一定會赤足踏著晨露走向他們的信箱。

We planned our weddings with the help of Barbie dolls and the tiny purple wildfl owers growing in our side yard. We became scientists and tested concoctions of milk, orange juice, and mouthwash. We ate handfuls of bittersweet chocolate chips and licked peanut butter off spoons. When we ran out of sweets to eat, we snitched sugary Flintstones(5) vitamins out of the medicine cabinet. We became masters of the Kraft(6) macaroni and cheese lunch, and we dutifully called our mother at work three times a day to give her updates on our adventures. But don’t call too often or speak too loudly or whine too much, we told ourselves, or else they’ll get an noyed and she’ll get fired and the summers will end.

我們用芭比娃娃和旁邊小花園里紫色的小野花來籌辦我們的婚禮游戲。我們是科學家，嘗試牛奶、橙汁和漱口水的混合物。我們吃光一把又一把甜中帶苦的巧克力片，把勺子上的花生醬舔得干干凈凈。糖果吃完了，我們就從藥箱里偷拿有甜味的弗林斯通復合維生素。我們成了用卡夫通心面和干酪烹制午餐的專家，并盡職盡責地每天給正在上班的媽媽打3個電話匯報我們的最新情況。但是，我們告誡自己：不要打太多電話，不要說得太大聲，也不要在電話里過多地訴苦，要不然他們就會生氣，媽媽就會被解雇，美好的夏日也就完結了。

We shaped our days the way we chose, far from the prying eyes of adults. We found our dad’s Playboys and charged the neighborhood boys money to look at them. We made crank calls around the county, telling people they had won a new car. "What kind?" they’ d ask. "Red," we’ d always say. We put on our mom’s old prom(7) dresses, complete with gloves and hats, and sang backup to the C.W. McCall(8) song convoy, " which we’ d found on our dad’s turntable.

遠離大人們窺視的目光，我們按自己選擇的方式安排著生活。我們找出了爸爸的《花花公子》雜志，讓鄰家的男孩們付費觀看。我們給全縣各地的人打神秘電話，對他們說他們贏得了一輛新車。“什么樣的?”他們會問。而我們總是回答：“紅的。”我們穿上媽媽班級舞會時穿的舊禮服，配上手套和帽子，伴著在爸爸的唱機上找到的麥考爾的《護衛隊》歌唱。