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After the play, I took home the flower I had stuffed in the apron of my costume. My mother pressed it between two sheets of paper toweling in a dictionary, laughing as she did it that we were perhaps the only people who would press such a sorry-looking weed.
演出結束后，我把那朵蒲公英塞進了我演出服的口袋里帶回了家。媽媽把它壓在兩張紙巾之間再夾進字典里，笑著說，這世上也許只有我們兩人愿意把這么一株不起眼的野草小心翼翼地夾起來。
I often look back on our lunchtimes together, bathed in the soft midday light. They were the commas in my childhood, the pauses that told me life is not savored in pre-measured increments , but in the sum of daily rituals and small pleasures we casually share with loved ones. Over peanut-butter sandwiches and chocolate-chip cookies, I learned that love, first and foremost, means being there for the little things.
如今，沐浴在正午和煦的陽光里，我常回憶起我們一起度過的那些午餐時間。它們就像是我童年歲月里的小逗點兒。這些停頓告訴我，生命不是在預先量好的增額中來體味的，而是要在每天的生活瑣事以及不經意中和所愛的人共享的許多小樂趣中去細細體味的。吃著花生醬三明治和巧克力曲奇條，我認識到：愛，首先并且最重要地，意味著關注那些微不足道的小事。
A few months ago, my mother came to visit. I took off a day from work and treated her to lunch. The restaurant bustled with noontime activity as businesspeople made deals and glanced at their watches. In the middle of all this sat my mother, now retired, and I. From her face I could see that she relished the pace of the work world.
幾個月前，媽媽來看我。我請了一天假陪她吃午飯。午時的餐館熙熙攘攘，一些商人在吃飯，時不時地瞟一眼腕上的手表。在這些忙碌的人群中，我和現已退休的媽媽坐在那里。從她臉上，我看得出她非常羨慕上班族的工作節奏。
Mom, you must have been terribly bored staying at home when I was a child, I said.
“媽媽，我小時候您呆在家里照顧我時，一定感到非常厭煩吧？”我問道。
Bored? Housework is boring. But you were never boring.
“厭煩？家務活確實讓人感到厭煩，但你永遠也不會讓我感到厭煩。”
I didn't believe her so I pressed. Surely children are not as stimulating as a career.
我有些不相信，于是又說：“照顧孩子肯定不像工作那么具有挑戰性。”
A career is stimulating, she said. I'm glad I had one. But a career is like an open balloon. It remains inflated only as long as you keep pumping. A child is a seed. You water it. You care for it the best you can. And then it grows all by itself into a beautiful flower.
“工作確實非常具有挑戰性，"她說,”我很高興我有過一份工作。不過，工作就像是一個敞開口的氣球，你只有一直給它充氣，它才會保持膨脹。但孩子就像是一粒種子，你給它澆水，盡自己最大努力來呵護它。然后，它會自己成長起來，變成一朵美麗的花兒。"
