有的人对搬家很抵触，觉得搬家给人一种流浪的感觉。一些离家在外的人提起自己的住处，有时也有几分迟疑—那个窝算不算“家”？但对我来说，搬家，并不是值得深恶痛绝的一件事。大学毕业后，自己也搬过两次家。除了累，搬家其实是很美妙的体验—在一个陌生的地方慢慢寻找它与心灵的契合点，寻找平静。家的感觉并不等同于熟悉感。平静是一种心态，home也是一种心态。You will be home only when you have a home within your heart.
　　(Terry)
　　
　　One of my favorite childhood books was 1)Donald Hall’s The Ox-Cart Man. I 2)flipped through the pages of simple and elegant drawings of an early American family long before I learned to read; by the time I could read it myself, the 3)binding was broken and pages had begun to come 4)detached from the hardcover 5)spine. In the story, a New England farmer goes to Portsmouth to sell his goods wool, leather, vegetables, candles as well as the cart and ox that brought him to market. Saying good-bye to the ox, he kisses it on the nose and heads for home. As a child, I loved this story because of the themes of the 6)eternal cycle of seasons the sense that a kind of newness and rebirth comes with every season, every change. As an adult, getting ready to move from the small city where I attended university to one of the biggest of big cities, New York, I turn to The Ox-Cart Man again because it reminds me that what I’m doing this packing and 7)shedding of 8)worldly goods is as natural as the seasons, and that change will renew me, despite all that I’m 9)casting off in the process.
　　I have moved exactly eleven times in the past six years. I have moved from dorm room to dorm room (sometimes each semester), and from one apartment to another. I’ve mastered the twin arts of packing and unpacking, and I can fill out an address change form faster than you would think possible. I’ve had many addresses, and many more phone numbers. I’ve become comfortable with these small, in-town moves. They’ve taught me to imagine myself as a turtle, carrying my shelter on my back; they’ve taught me to rethink “home”not so much as a physical place, but rather as a mental state. This understanding is what makes this next move so significant: for not only am I changing cities, I am also changing my mental understanding of home. “Home”will no longer be measured in semesters, nor will it include classes, professors, or paper writing the known variables that make up the 10)transient life of a student. Instead, my notion of home will depend on new and unknown quantities.
　　For nearly six years now, I’ve been here in 11)upstate New York, first as an undergraduate and then as a graduate student. When I first arrived in Binghamton (in a loaded-down, 12)sagging 13)station wagon 14)crammed with every comfort, every book I could possibly imagine ever needing in that new dorm-home), I hated this city. I suffered through my first semester, while I filled out transfer applications for schools in nicer, less rainy places. But I stuck through that first year, and made friends who, in turn, made this tired, upstate city easier to manage.
　　


　　Slowly, I accumulated more and more things in an effort to make me feel as though I had a home. I brought my books here including the much-loved books of my childhood and I collected hand-me-down furniture from my parents’ house. I bought kitchen appliances and 15)gadgets and even the same metal hanging baskets my mother has in her kitchen. These things gave me a 16)makeshift, if material, 17)semblance of home while I was away at school; these objects, so familiar and comforting, gave me something to hold onto, temporarily, until I could create a sense of home in my mind.
　　Now, three degrees later, I am finally done with my schooling, and I’m to join the slightly-more-real-life working world. I will sell my textbooks and some of my novels, finally, in a 18)last-ditch effort to diminish the number of books I’m moving. I will get rid of my skis, which made winters here less oppressive and 19)claustrophobic. I will give away the ice-cream maker (a hand-me-down from my parents) I never used while at school, but remembered using once, as a kid, with my father. I will say goodbye to the university library, the 20)grungy bars, the pizza places that fed me, and the classrooms where I dreamed away whole semesters.
　　As I’m getting rid of the 21)trappings of my life as a student, something is shifting in me. More and more these days I’m imagining life as an adult in a big city with a real job. I imagine waking before nine a.m. to catch a train to my job. I imagine evenings that aren’t spent analyzing literature, but instead spent lazily reading for fun again. I realize, slowly, that Sunday evenings will no longer be spent writing papers or catching up for the week ahead. My time will no longer be divided into semesters and breaks in school, as it has been for the past nineteen years of my life as a student. Coming home from a long break at my parent’s house, the university towers will no longer welcome me back to the place I have come to call home.
　　So, just as the Ox-Cart Man sold his goods at market-the wool he’d mined from his sheep, the harvested vegetables, his cart, and, finally, his ox to prepare for the long winter, I cart my books off to the used bookstore and distribute the furniture that won’t fit into a tiny New York apartment among my friends. I pack away folders of school notes and papers, and I fix the buildings of the university in my head so they are always there. I say my good-byes to my friends still studying, and kiss my very first car on the 22)hood before I sell it off to a young college student. I try hard not to hold too tight to my possessions the things that have helped me live here in this little city but I 23)cling to my memories of this place and remember the promise of life after school.
　　


　　
　　我小时候最喜欢的一本书是唐纳德·荷尔的《拉牛车的人》。这是一本关于一个早期美国家庭故事的书，插图简单而优雅。在我会认字之前，我一次又一次地翻看这本书。等我可以自己读这本书时，这本精装书的装订已经松松垮垮，书页也开始脱落了。故事的主人公是一名新英格兰地区的农民，他去朴次茅斯卖他的东西：羊毛、皮革、蔬菜、蜡烛等，他还会把运东西去市场的牛和车也一起卖掉。跟牛告别时，他会在牛鼻上亲一下，然后就回家了。小时候我很喜欢这个故事，因为故事的主题是关于季节的周而复始——每一个不同的季节，每一次变化都寓意着一个新的开始。现在我长大成人了，马上就要离开我上大学的小城到名列大都市前茅的纽约。我又一次翻阅《拉牛车的人》，因为它让我想起自己正在做的事情—收拾行李和心情，卸下世俗杂事，这就像是季节转换般自然。尽管我在这个过程中舍弃一些东西，但这次变化会让我获得新生。
　　


　　在过去的六年里，准确地说，我共搬过十一次家。我从一个寝室搬到另一个寝室—有时甚至是一个学期搬一次，从一个公寓搬到另一个公寓。我因此掌握了打行李和搬家后拆包这两项技巧。我填写地址变更表的速度比一般人想象的要快得多。我曾经有过许多不同的地址和更多的电话号码，我已经习惯了在这小城内搬来搬去。有人教我把自己想象成一只把家驼在背上的龟；也有人教我不要把家看成一个实实在在的地方，而重新理解为一种精神状态。正是这种想法使得这次搬家显得特别重要，因为这次我不仅仅是从一个城市搬到另一个城市，而且我也在改变着我对家的理解。家对于我来说，已经不再是用学期来衡量的了，也与课程、教授和写论文都没有关系了—这些都是一个学生的流浪生活里的变数。现在家的概念取决于某些新的和不确定的因素。
　　六年来，从一名大学本科生到研究生，我都一直住在纽约州的北部。当初，我开着塞得满满的客货两用车来到这里，车里装满了所有我想象得出能让宿舍生活舒适的用品和我用得上的书。初来乍到的我痛恨这座城市。第一个学期我熬得很苦，在那个学期，我递交了转学申请，要求转到其它更好、少雨的地方。不过，我熬过了第一年，也交了些朋友。他们让我在纽约州北部烦恼的日子好过些。
　　慢慢地，为了让自己有家的感觉，我积攒了越来越多的物品。我在这里买了不少书，包括我童年很喜爱的书。我还收集了我父母用过的家具，买了厨房器具和一些小玩意，甚至有一个与我妈妈在厨房用的一模一样的金属挂篮。在我离家上学的日子里，这些东西暂时给了我一个类似于家的“家”（从物质层面上来说），这些东西很熟悉，令人感到宽慰，让我在心里面有家的感觉之前，有一些我可以暂时抓住的东西。
　　如今，我已获得三个学位，终于走出学校，即将加入比学生生活更为真实的打工世界。我会卖掉课本和部分小说，这是我为了减少搬家时要带上的书而作的最后努力。我会处理我的滑雪板，它曾使我在这里的冬天不那么郁闷和闭塞。我也打算把那个冰淇淋机送给别人，这是我父母用过的；我自己在学校里一次也没用过，但我记得小时候与我父亲一起用过一回。我还会向学校图书馆、又脏又乱的酒吧、让我填饱肚子的各个比萨店告别。当然还有那些教室，在那里我曾终日遐想。
　　就在我摆脱学生时代的一些无用物品的同时，我的内心也在发生变化。在这些日子里，我越来越多地想象自己作为一个成年人，在一个大城市里拥有一份正式工作的生活。我想象自己早上九点前起床去赶火车上班，晚上再也不用分析文学作品，而是再度为自己的兴趣而看书。慢慢地，我意识到，我再也不用在星期天晚上写论文，或者为即将到来的一周学业做准备。我的时间再也不会以学期、假期划分——我过去十九年的学生生活就是这样的。在父母家度完长假回来，在这个我如今视为家的地方，学校大楼已不再欢迎我了。
　　拉牛车的人为了度过漫长的严冬，在市场卖掉他的货品：从羊身上剪来的羊毛、采摘的蔬菜、大车，最后他还把牛给卖了。我也把我的书载到旧书店，把那些无法装进纽约小公寓的家具送给朋友。我把装着读书时的笔记、论文的文件夹打包。我把学校的大楼印在我的脑海里，想把它们永远留在记忆里。我向还没毕业的朋友告别，在把我的第一辆车卖给一个年轻大学生之前亲吻了它的引擎盖。我努力让自己不要抓住自己拥有的物品牢牢不放—在这个小城居住的这段日子里，它们曾予我帮助—但却牢牢地守住我对这个地方的记忆，记住对毕业后的生活承诺。