marigold and rose

写作，是一个记住思维在哪里停留过的方式。

比如，我今天经历了什么。可能今晚我记得所有细节和感受，两天之后部分还清晰，一周之后个把片段支离破碎，一个半月后彻底失忆。

当神经绷着的时候（徒步下山），全身的感官共同决定着视线停留在哪。但当神经放松时（逛书店），眼睛在什么图像上做工是一件有趣的事。

2

这是一个雨天的周六，我在Winterthur小镇逛一个书店，满目的德语书籍，穿插着仅两排的英文书货架。可以理解，外语书区自然是备受“冷落”，连基本的分类标签也没有。只能主打一个serendipity随机取一本，翻上几页，再取下一本，看看书本后的书评..

有意思的是，各大杂志、权威刊物给的书评都已经简短到单个形容词：“awesome”, "terrific" "fantastic"... 一度让我想起了GPT在生成激励性文本时所用的熟悉词语。如果说他的训练集包括过去20年的“优质文本”，这些评价语简直功不可没。

几乎可以断定这些给评价的编辑同志们大概率没读。

我在想当我读过一本书后，不管是一本什么样的书，烧脑、新知、有意思的或震三观的、看的顺畅的完全看不懂的，一个方面都能说个1789来。哪怕就是把高亮的原句捡出来，看看我的眼睛离开文本的部分是哪里。（人思考的时候，眼睛会离开你看的文本或图像，躲到后面开会儿小差。所以在eye tracking实验中会以此检测到什么时候陷入思考以及深度思考。）

是的，我都想要剪出其中的部分，结合自己，再“重写”一遍。我觉得阅读同样是一个扫描思维的创作的过程。只不过写作是给这个过程出个片儿，给自己出个“诊断书”。

翻的几本fictions全忘了名字，只记得售价均在17块多瑞郎。视线转移到收银处的小移动架子上，有一本封面简笔画着两个双胞胎女孩的书，标题是 marigold and rose，只有五六十页单薄的一本，是那种能一口气读完的小册子，售价27块多瑞郎。封面小字写着诺贝尔奖得主Louise Glück著。

3

我当然没买。

记下了名字，回去搜了个电子版。这本书一开始读起来有些...莫名其妙，甚至不及熟悉的另一本小册子Ayn Rand “Anthem” 一半的语言流畅度。若是读不进去，大概10页左右就放弃了。

如果想象自己是一只鸟，最接近的写法可能是 用它的叫声来表达（但是读者看不懂）。如果你的视角是一对双胞胎婴儿，怎么想象用它们的思维表达呢？

这是这本书有趣的地方。

在婴儿开口说话之前，很难理解它为什么哭。但他们可以开口解释为什么哭的时候，似乎又不是那么一回事儿。

怎么想象以婴儿的意识来写书呢？因为在有写书的意识之时，你可能早已经不是个婴儿了。

marigold从什么时候想要写一本名叫“我妈妈的童年”的书？

在能说话和写作之前，我们怎么产生“记住”的概念？我们从何时开始想要记住，想开始讲述的呢？

4

我标记了几个片段，下面是一些摘抄。marigold和rose是一对双胞胎婴儿姐妹。

they understood it because it was gone

“It was not a happy time. This was the first the twins understood the word, happy, but they understood it because it was gone. Like the way they understood remembering”.

当一个东西离开的时候，往往才是理解的开始。比如快乐，和记住。当我们不快乐的时候，往往最理解快乐是什么；当我们遗忘的时候，才会想要去记住。

“It seemed to Marigold that you remembered things because they changed. You didn’t need to remember what was right in front of you. And the twins were still too little to have much behind. But Marigold wanted to be prepared for change, which meant you had to learn to remember before you needed to remember.”

想要记住是因为事物总是在变化着。Marigold想要为变化做准备。

纯真状态被打破，而与外界建立联系（也就是面对不受控制的变化）的过程。

Marigold is homeless.

“Rose was perennial. This meant she was always there, in her one place, just getting bigger, whereas Marigold was annual. You seed yourself, Mother said; this seemed to her a cheerful fact. But Marigold did not think it was cheerful. For one thing, it meant she was homeless, never knowing where she would be from one year to the next, maybe another garden entirely, without Mother and Father to carry her around when she was tired. You are a multitude; Mother said this also. It meant that though you might have one rose in your garden (what a marvelous rose, people would say), you would never have one marigold.”

*[https://colleges-unitedstates.blogspot.com/2018/05/annual-perennial-40.html] Annual plant 只開一次花，花謝了生命週期就終結。Perennial [pəˋrɛnɪəl] plant，它會每年都開花的，如果妳給予正確的照料。

*[wikipedia] A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term (perennial, "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials.

Because you couldn’t see thinking.

“She is the thinking one, Mother said. Rose was the everything else one. But everything else doesn’t count, Rose thought. And Marigold thought everything else was everything. Because you couldn’t see thinking.

But she did think. And she felt things. The alphabet book affected her deeply. Each letter had its own page. Then in the end they teamed up to make the alphabet. In other books, this alphabet could fall apart to make words, any word you could think of. The unused letters seemed to Marigold tragic and gallant. But they all had jobs to do sooner or later, making kangaroo and zebra and bear and pigeon. And this gave Marigold hope, which she often needed, given how quick she was to expect the worst.”

据说，这本书的创作灵感来自于一系列小视频。新冠疫情期间，她的儿子从加利福尼亚寄来了孙女艾米和利兹的视频。Louise 很喜欢这些视频，通常一看就停不下来，“看双胞胎有点像是去动物园，你会看到一些在其他婴儿身上看不到的东西。因为这两个孩子在与外界建立关系之前，彼此间就自带了一种相互的关联。”

和外界去建立联系是一个需要不断“理解”的过程，和自己内心深处的连接也是追溯可能有过的纯真的方式。这两者没有哪一个更重要，可能是一种时间的必然，彼此碰撞中塑造着Annual或perennial。

理解和记住是一种长大的品质。