騎車記：飛一般的自由

著名主持人倪萍有本書叫做《自行車的日子》，里面有句話總結了人在自行車上的心境：當置身其中，你會感到這像是血脈在運行，熱熱鬧鬧、轟轟烈烈，蘊藏著不盡的潛能，仿佛自行車也有靈魂、有脈搏、有呼吸一樣。如果說，自行車有靈魂，那也一定會是輪轉不歇、自由不羈的靈魂吧！不然，怎能載著我在青山綠水、貧窮富貴、時間流轉中肆意飛馳呢？

By Perdita Buchan

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No one forgets their first bicycle. Mine was a Schwinn coaster, secondhand, painted a distinctive red and yellow by its previous owner. I remember wobbling dangerously - and too fast - down the big hill on Springfield Avenue amid encouraging outriders: friends who had already learned. I knew at once I was being set free, that the world would be mine to explore.

A couple of years later, when I was 11, my grandmother visited from England, bringing me a bicycle. She came by sea and the bicycle came in a crate with her luggage. It was a glossy dark green, with three gears and hand brakes. As the owner of the first English bicycle my peers had ever seen, I was, for a time, almost a celebrity.

Unlike the coaster bike, it was light and responsive - riding it felt like flying. I rode it everywhere, all over the hilly suburb where we lived. I rode past the big stone houses with their huge yards and established trees. I rode down the streets of small, two-family starter houses and past the brick row houses of the people who worked in the big houses. I rode alone and with gangs of friends through the seasons: spicy autumn dusks, lingering spring afternoons, hot summer mornings, even deep into the chill of winter before snow and ice stopped me.

That beloved bike went with me to college, carrying me to the library and to classes, past the big frame houses of Brattle Street and the shabby triple-deckers of North Cambridge, and into trouble with the local police for ignoring one-way street signs. Beyond transport, it was often a prop: Pushing it along as I walked the college paths made me feel less conspicuous, less self-conscious. Somehow, conversation flowed more easily on either side of a bike.

After college, I lived abroad for a time. Returning from London, I discovered to my horror that my parents had sold my bike. They didn't even know who had bought it.

For years after that, I didn't have a bicycle that was specifically mine. Teaching in a New England prep school, I simply rode whatever bikes its graduates had left behind, usually for good reason. I rode around the little town, out to the surrounding fields and woods, on bikes that slipped in and out of gear, with brakes that grabbed or simply failed.

I did not take any of those bikes with me when I moved south to the coastal town where I now live. But after a while I missed riding.

Finally, on a fall day, I bought a bicycle. Called a comfort bike, it has wider tires than my old bike and seven gears. But it is green - a brighter green, but green nonetheless.

Still, I was a bit apprehensive. I was out of the habit and a lot older. I brought the bike home and put on my helmet - I'd never worn a helmet before. Then I got on the bike to ride down to the boardwalk.

After a tentative, slightly wobbly start, I felt exactly as I had that long-ago day on Springfield Avenue: free. Soon I was scudding along, watching the waves break, hearing the gulls cry. The beach roses were still blooming, the monarch butterflies in full jittery flight. It seemed that everyone I passed smiled and waved or called out almost wistfully, "Great day for a bike ride!"

And I knew they all remembered their first bike and how it had set them free. It still can, I wanted to call back to them, it still can.

Vocabulary

1. Schwinn: 施文，美國最知名的自行車品牌之一；coaster: 卡斯達，一款山地車的名稱，有寬而多齒的輪胎和牢固結實的車架，適于各種路況騎行；distinctive: 獨特的，與眾不同的。

2. 我記得自己以極快的速度沖下斯普林菲爾德大道的陡坡，搖搖晃晃十分危險，幸而有會騎車的朋友陪伴左右不斷給予我鼓勵。wobble: 搖晃，下文wobbly指“搖晃的，晃動的”；hill: （路上的）斜坡；outrider: （為車輛開道的）摩托車警衛，此處指為作者護航的騎友們。

3. crate: 板條箱，裝貨箱。

4. glossy: 有光澤的，光滑的；gear: 排擋，齒輪；hand brake: 手剎。

5. celebrity: 名人。

6. responsive: 反應快的，靈敏的。

7. suburb: 郊區。

8. starter house: 起步房，過渡房（首次購買的小房子或小公寓）；row house: 排屋（一排相連房屋的一幢）。

9. 我有時獨自上路，有時和朋友們一路歡歌，穿越四季的流轉：清爽的秋日黃昏、漫長的春日午后、炎熱的夏日晨光，就連冬日的嚴寒也阻擋不了我一路前行，直至冰雪降臨。a gang of: 一群；spicy: 輕快的；lingering: 拖延的，漫長的。

10. 那輛心愛的自行車隨我步入大學校園，載我去過圖書館和教室，途經普雷多街上那些龐然木屋和北劍橋破舊的三層樓房，還曾沖入“險境”——因無視街旁的單行道指示牌而被當地警察攔住過。frame house: 木屋；shabby: 骯臟破舊的；triple-decker: 這里指三層的房屋。

11. prop: 道具；conspicuous: 顯眼的，引人注目的；self-conscious: （在他人面前）忸怩的，不自然的。

12. prep school: （私立）預備學校。

13. slip in and out of gear: 自行車齒輪脫落，移位；grab: 抓住，攫取，此處指自行車剎車過緊。

14. apprehensive: 憂慮的，擔心的。

15. helmet: 頭盔。

16. boardwalk: （用木板鋪成或架成的）海濱寬闊人行道。

17. tentative: 實驗性的，試探性的。

18. scud: 飄過，掠過；break: （波浪）迸濺，拍岸；gull: 海鷗。

19. monarch butterfly: 黑脈金斑蝶，俗稱帝王蝶，棲息在北美一帶；jittery: 焦慮的，緊張不安的。

20. wistfully: 渴望地，惆悵地。

（來源：英語學習雜志 編輯：董靜）