然后无风。
也变成了平静的回忆。
什么都似乎变成了大致的轮廓。

没有细节的回忆等于死亡吗？有多勇敢才敢于反复回忆种种细节？但我偏喜欢这么折磨自己，似乎不这样无所谓成就自己的坚强。某一段人生在不断地回忆中总结了自己。精简了，鲜明了。

好的坏的都成了绝对，粉的更红，灰的变黑。
一切都在变化。唯一不变的是，我还在变。变化由细节构成，细得我从来不觉得自己在变。
还以为原本如此。


回忆是片断的，掺杂在忙碌的生活中。我其实也喜欢沉默，不过写字的时候总是必须比沉默稍出一点声的。


我还是很少看言情剧，但印象颇深的高频率镜头是：女主角说：让我一个人静一静，然后默默躲进房间哭泣，不多时又出现在好友面前，满脸平静和坚韧。然后配角死党就会摇着她的肩膀说，别忍着，不要太憋着自己，云云。接下来的发展就要看导演的想法了，姐妹情深还是一夜长大，不一而足。

这个对我不适用。

第一，我不习惯别人陪着我一起伤心。
第二，我也曾试过将自己默默关进房间，抓紧被子，抱紧枕头，把自己缩得很紧。

……很紧。
像要睡着。
但我又很快醒来。我总是无法哭泣。或者说，那一小股要乐观要坦然的想法成了一张网，托着我，晃晃悠悠，总归不让我沉下去。忍一会儿，麻木一点，悲伤从网眼中像细沙一样下落下落，露出眼睛鼻子，终于又可以呼吸。

他们说这样不好。不彻底地放开，也许就失去了反弹的力量。也许他们是对的。
那些沙子都落到哪里去了？


从楼上往下看。
季节其实是交错着的，并不整齐。那句“忽如一夜春风来”，形容的是下雪，不是开花。
花是要慢慢开的。

二〇〇七年的夏天，时已过半，绿色已深。走下楼去，却还有春后的残花——说是残花，其中也有一些开得很盛，小小的一块块，有的像嫩黄的鸟嘴，或者如微红的细簪。也有开的半败的，那些红白相间的苜蓿，残留一般绒球的蒲公英。高高一棵树的顶上，或许还有几枝未落的枯叶——这就是更早之前，去年的冬季未赶上时节的了。

我们的季节犬牙参差。我们簇拥在一起，但却又用各种颜色和姿态标志了自己的小小领地。发芽，茂叶，盛开，凋零，发芽，盛开，茂叶，凋零。我们生命的时间轴交错在一起，被光和热引领着，缠绕在一起。

你在发芽时，我在开花。你在凋零时，我已沉寂。
当大多数人走到夏天的时候，世界就是夏天了。

一段人生逝去时，最难过的莫过于要给自己一个解释。有时候更可怜的是，还要解释给别人听。
比如好友，比如父母，比如下一个他。

好友喜欢知道的是细节，是剖析深层的原因。父母喜欢知道的同路不同路，可靠不可靠。下一个他喜欢知道的是，你错还是他错。

对其他人，我懒得解释，随他们误会去。伤口谢绝参观。

一遍一遍地翻阅回忆。渐渐地，有些细节被歪曲了。就像开头说的，好的更好，坏的更坏。好的让自己心存感激，不至于觉得虚度了那段时光，坏的让自己不再回头，勇于向前。

一开始我还知道区别，后来我相信的是自己最后一个版本的想法。


有时我会坐在草地边上呆头呆脑地看着一棵杨树（或者别的什么树）。高大秀颀的树干，闪着银光的皮肤，脚下依傍着一支两支悠然的野花。

有时候我喜欢自己是那棵树，自己站立着，与周围的树木保持相互尊重的距离，绿叶繁茂，坚韧而美丽。我也喜欢可以将自己给鸟和松鼠做窝。毕竟花是没法子和大一点的动物交流的。我不喜欢蜜蜂，虽然我要在上课时指出几种不同的蜜蜂给学生看。就算我是一棵树，我也绝对不会让身上出现一个蜂房。没得商量。

有时候我喜欢自己是朵花，悠然自在，与世无争，随心所欲地生长，——如果你愿意，可以长出一朵莫希干头似的花，比如鸡冠花。可以和别的花抱在一团，也可以孤芳自赏。没有挺拔的责任，不受期待也不受责怪。可以香，也可以发臭。如果长得好，可以受到称赞，如果是处皆无，大可不被注意。

但我也曾在树林的深处，青苔未至的落叶堆中见到一种小小的黄花。不到我的脚踝高，但一处却只长一朵，站得笔直，花朵像薄薄的五角玻璃铃铛，微微垂着，鲜黄透亮。孤独的，默默地，在早春的角落里，转瞬即逝。

而那树身上，总是要带上几处钉子或者刀斧的伤痕，随着成长就结疤，但却也扩大，突起。谁有首诗，记得很深，大概是说——成长的回忆就像是一棵这样的树，那些伤口会在春天的夜晚里绽发出令人难过的芬芳。

我长成了一个怪物，既不是花也不是树。

回忆起来的时候，又是满眼青翠了。
总是春天。
曾经珍惜的和痛惜的，都还是同样地呵护着，放在心眼的一个小孔里，供着。我知道它们都在哪里，只是不再去碰它。
偶尔翻寻记忆的时候路过，也是淡淡地走过，不再抬头。

那天他跟我说话。
问我，如果再回到从前，会不会做出同样的选择。
老掉牙的情节，真的发生在自己身上，竟然有点失神。

世界上那么多人，爱情和悲伤的情节难免重复，但是发生到自己身上，总是新鲜的。不管是羞涩还是热情，还是凋零。

但我早已考虑过这个问题。会的，我说。

也许他会为此而激动，但是我说的是实话。我知道我会的。我也知道这样现在看来也许很蠢，但是我应该尊重自己的情感而非理性的抉择，毕竟我知道在那个时候，情感终将获胜。



课上有个学生问教授，松鼠会不会从树上摔下来，教授笑笑说会的，在它们脸红的时候。

上次有人问，如果你也可以被某种动物咬一口，然后变成像蜘蛛人一样的超某人，你会选什么动物？大家又很踊跃，有的说要变鸟人，有的说要变猫人，有的说要变猛禽人，有的说要变外星人。但我竟然想不到要变成什么动物。——如果人被人咬了一口呢？

呵呵，那就是一个吻。
然后变成对方心里的人。

下午从体育馆出来，看到一棵偌大的草地上好几只松鼠跳来跳去，埋着头认真的找来找去。又该到埋吃的时候了吗？真快啊。

已经七月末了。
我于是很好奇动物对季节的看法。除了食物，除了繁殖。
同时又很可怜树和花，毕竟它们总是只能呆在同一个地方。
然后又很庆幸自己成为人，可以这样看来看去，看到树，花，松鼠，野鸭，鹿，并且还能写下回想来。

最近我又问了别人类似的一个问题：——如果你知道你八年辛苦之后还是会跟她分开，你当时会跟她在一起吗？

他说不知道。然后问，你呢？
我说我会啊。我笑了，他鄙视了一下我的故作阳光，但还是问，为什么。
看你想要得到什么吧。我说。
但是我可能会早点结束。我又说。
我会捞了就跑，决不做亏本生意。我心说。

那些知道急流勇退，见好就收的人，的确是聪明的。山穷水尽，穷山恶水，不如留下柳暗花明的遐想余地。
其实我做不到。


如果二年生的花到了来年，知道第一年的默默只是为了现在的灿烂，于是不顾残冬的伤口开放，这样是聪明还是蠢？过把瘾就死，也是一种悲壮的性情活法。

记得三个月前，楼下的草丛里，一地黄花白花，有的一年生，年年都开；有的二年生，去年不在，今年才开，明年又不在。它们在阳光下都很亮眼。新生，娇嫩，湿润。

我蹲下来仔细看，也不知道它们是不是去年我认识的、打过招呼的那些，还是从匍匐地下的过冬根茎中重新长出来的新伙计。

新长出来的，会跟过去是同一个吗？

□

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Silhouette. Photograph by Wenwen WANG. 1 May 2006. California, USA.
© Reproduced by Scidea Art 2007. National History. Used by permission. ScideaNews.com

Copyright 2007 國家歷史 National History


Silhouette. Photograph by Wenwen WANG. 1 May 2006. California, USA.
© Reproduced by Scidea Art 2007. National History. Used by permission. ScideaNews.com

Copyright 2007 國家歷史 National History


Silhouette. Photograph by Wenwen WANG. 10 May 2007. California, USA.
© Reproduced by Scidea Art 2007. National History. Used by permission. ScideaNews.com
Copyright 2007 國家歷史 National History

Copyright © National History, 2008. 國家歷史  ScideaNews.com
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doi: 10.3128/nh20070805a1


Then The Winds Silenced 


王雯雯
WANG Wenwen

新长出来的，会跟过去是同一个吗？
If the plant was newborn, could it be the same one as before?




Then the winds were silenced.
And the memories pacified.
Every story shrinks into its beginning and end. Every figure becomes a silhouette. 

Has the memories died with the evanescence of details? How bold should one be to repeatedly recall every piece of the details, persisting with the aftertaste? But I just kept torturing myself this way. As if I would not be able to confirm my determination otherwise. The past stage of life has concluded itself when being chewed over and over. Condensed. Sharpened.

Everything has gone to absolute extremes. Good or bad. Pink turned redder, gray turned darker.  

Everything has been changing. The only thing unchanged is that I am still changing. Every change is made up of innumerous subtle details, so fine that I never felt myself changing.

I thought it had always been the same. 

Occasionally, memory rises as small pieces during my busy life. I usually keep silent about them, but you have to be a little bit louder than silent when you write. 

I seldom watch love stories. But I am quite impressed with one frequent scene, when the heroine says "leave me alone for a while". Then she shuts herself into a room and cries quietly. Shortly she would return to her friends with peaceful and determined expression. Then the supporting role would shake her shoulders and tell her not to push herself too hard, and so on. What will happen afterwards is up to the director. Admiring friendship or growing up overnight, there are various endings. 

None of those will apply to me.
First, I am not used to share my sorrow with others.
Second, I've tried to shut myself into a room, clutch the quilt, enclasp the pillow, and hold myself very tight. 

Very tight.
Feel like falling asleep.
But I woke up instead. I never managed to cry out. Or rather, those thoughts of optimism and calmness held me like a ramshackle net, and it wouldn't let me sink. Hold on one more moment, and numb yourself until insensible. Sadness would fall like sands though the meshes. Finally, I got my breath back.

They say this is not good. If you don't let it out drastically, you may lose the strength to bounce back. Perhaps they are right.

Where have all those sands gone? 

Look down from my window.
The seasons are actually interwoven, not orderly alternating. That lyric "just like the spring breeze overnight" is actually talking about the coming snow, not florescence. 

Flowers take time. 

The summer of 2007 has half passed. Viridescence has grown into bottle-green, just like the deep ocean. I went downstairs and walked out of the door, just to find a few post-spring withering flowers——yet among them there were still some in full blossom. Small patches of flowers, like light-yellow beaks of young birds, or slender rosy Chinese hairpins. And the others have passed their best time, such as those clovers with tiny flowers of red and white, and the dandelions with half a downy white hairball, overlapping and interlacing with one another. High upon a tree, occasionally there would be a handful of dead leaves that didn't fall, which must have been from even earlier time, the last winter.  

Our seasons interlace. We cluster together, while mark our tiny territories with various colors and poses. Germinate, leaf, blossom, and wither; and again, germinate, blossom, leaf, and wither. The coordinates of our lives overlap and interlace with one another, guided by light and warmth, intertwining together.

When you germinate, I am blossoming. When you wither, I am already quiescent.
The world steps into summer when most of its people do. 

The most difficult thing when a stage of your life is leaving you is to give yourself an explanation. Even more miserable, sometimes you have to explain to the others.

Such as to friends, to mom and dad. Such as to the next "him".

Friends want to know the details, to analyze the causes and results in deep. Mom and dad want to know whether you fit each other, whether he is reliable. The next "he" wants to know, whose fault it was.

I won't explain to any other people. Take it wrong as you like. My wounds are not for display.

I browse over the memories over and over again. Gradually, some details have been distorted. Just like I said in the beginning, good things turned better and bad things worse. Good things have kept the gratitude in my heart, for which I believe I didn't waste my life at that time. Bad things have pushed me ahead, without turning back.

I knew the subtle differences at first, then I start to only believe the last version of thoughts in my head.

Sometimes I would spend some time sitting on the grass, staring at a beech (or any other tree happened to be there). Tall, slender, smooth skin with silver glimmer, with carefree wildflowers around his foot.

Sometimes I'd like to be that tree. Stand on my own feet; keep respectful distances with other trees, with my leaves green and luxuriant. Tough and beautiful. I'd like to have birds and squirrels nesting on me. After all, flowers could not communicate with animals of slightly larger size than butterflies. I don't like bees, though I have to teach the students several different bees in class. Even if I am a tree, I won't allow any hive hanging on me. Not negotiatable.

Sometimes I wish I was that flower. Carefree and quiet, stand aloof from the noisy world, grow in whatever way I like to——Grow a Mohican head if you want, for example, just like the cockscomb. Cluster with the other flowers if you want, or stand alone egocentrically. Growing tall is not a "must". No one expects anything from you, so there will never be blame. Be fragrant, or stink. If you look pretty, you will be admired. But if it looks like nothing's there, other people will just ignore you.

But in the heart of the deep woods, within the piles of newly-fallen leaves which no lichen has ever reached, I once caught sight of a tiny yellow flower. It was shorter than my ankle, but it stands straight in solitude. Its corolla looked like a small pentagonal bell made of thin glasses, facing slightly downwards, brightly yellow. Lonely and silently, in an unknown corner of early spring, it blossomed and withered in the time of a wink.

And for that tree, it has to scar over the pain of nails and blades during its growth, and the wounds will enlarge into bumps. There was a poem deep in my memory, the author of which I can not remember. It says that the memory of growth is just a tree like this, and those wounds would exhale heart-breaking fragrance in the nights of spring.

I have grown into a strange thing. Not completely a flower, nor a tree.

When I recall it, my eyes were again filled with emerald.
It was always spring.

All those that were cherished and mourned, have always been protected in a tiny cell of my heart, carefully. I know they are all there, but just don't touch them anymore.

Once a while, I would pass them by when I look back. But I just walk away calmly, without look up.

One day he spoke to me.
He asked me, if we were back in time, whether I would make the same choice.

It was just an out-of-date plot, yet it still tranced me when really happened to me.

The world is so crowded with people that you just can't avoid repeating the love stories and tragedies of the others. However, it was still startling when it took place on me. No matter the feeling was shy, passionate, or withering.

But I have thought it over long time ago. "I would" was my answer.

Maybe he would be delighted because of my answer, but what I said was true. I know I would. I also know it was stupid, from my current point of view. But I have to respect the choice made by my feelings instead of my reason. After all, the feelings would beat my reason at that time.

In the class, a student raised his hand and asked the professor, whether the squirrels would fall off the trees. The professor smiled and said yes, when their faces flushed.

And once a friend raised a question for fun: if you could become any "animal-man" just like spider-man by been bitten by an animal, which animal you would pick? Then everybody became hilarious again. Some said a bird-man, a cat-man, or even a "alien-man". But I couldn't think of any. ——What if you were bitten by a human?

It would be a "kiss".
Then you became the "in-my-heart"-man.

I was walking out of the gym in the afternoon, when I saw quite a few squirrels jumping around on grass, seeking for food diligently. Was it time for storing food? How time flew.

July was approaching its end.
Then I became curious about how animals took seasons. Besides food and sex.
Meanwhile I felt sorry about those trees and flowers, as they could only stay in the same place.

Then I felt lucky that I was born as a human, so that I could walk and look, seeing the trees, flowers, squirrels, ducks, and deer, and wrote down some thoughts.

Recently I asked a friend a similar question,——If you had already known that you would part after eight years of efforts, would you still choose to be with her?

"I don't know", he shrug, and turned to me, "you?"
Sure I would. I said. I laughed. He was amused, but didn't forget to ask "why".
It depends on what you had wanted. I said.
But maybe I would end it earlier. I added.
I would just get it and run, without losing a thing. I said in my heart.

I admire those people who manage to leave the field at the best of their time. They are smart. You persist to see the end, and you get all the draff. Much better if you get the best and go, leaving some room for imagination and appreciation.

But I can never do that.

If those biennials reach their second year and recognize that the silent efforts before are just for the transient resplendence right now, will they struggle to blossom when the winter scars are still bleeding? Is it smart or foolish? Live up to it and die. It is a respectable independent way of life.

I still remember that three months ago, in the grass outside my home, there were full of flowers, yellow and white. Some of them were annual, flowering every year. Some of them were biennial, which were not here last year, flower this year, and then disappear next year. They were all eye-striking under the sunshine. Newborn, fresh, soft, and moist.

I went down and watch carefully, with no knowledge of their age. Were they the acquaintances that I met and greeted last year, or new faces grown out of winter roots?

If the plant was newborn, could it be the same one as before? □

□ 王雯雯，現在美國加州。
□ WANG Wenwen, now is in UCI, California, USA. Email: Rillete@hotmail.com
□ Received & Accepted 20070805. Text online 20071031. Image online 20071103.

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Copyright 2007 國家歷史 National History  

王雯雯。然後無風。國家歷史，1 (2) ,  nh20071021a1 (2008).  | CrossRef
Wenwen WANG. Then The Winds Silenced. National History, 1 (2) ,  nh20071021a1 (2008).  | CrossRef 

□ doi: 10.3128/nh20070805a1 | CrossRef
□ Advanced ScideaNews: National History: Wenwen WANG, Then The Winds Silenced. □ I went down and watch carefully, with no knowledge of their age. Were they the acquaintances that I met and greeted last year, or new faces grown out of winter roots? If the plant was newborn, could it be the same one as before? □ 王雯雯《然後無風》：新長出來的，會跟過去是同一個嗎？ nh200802。