拼字比賽的陰霾

On Wednesday， nearly 300 kids will take the

stage in the Maryland Ballroom to sweat it out at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Fewer will make it to the following day’s 2)semifinals， where one mistake means elimination. I’d 3)wager that many of them will be silently praying， “Not on the first word.” At least this was the plea—and later， the 4)lament—that hummed in my head at the very same bee， 17 years ago.

I was 14 years old， too anxious to be dazzled by the monuments and memorials of Washington. My mother and I had flown from Kentucky， but she was no stranger to the capital. My older sister had already competed three times at 5)nationals， having performed an 6)unprecedented three-peat at the state spelling bee in grades six， seven and eight.

When the time came， I 7)hurtled headlong into words. When my sister was 14 and I was 12， we trained together. We began with the Suggested List distributed at school—hundreds of words printed in 7-point font on a poster that folded up like a map. When the words along the 8)creases began to vanish，

周三，近300名孩子將在馬里蘭州

宴會廳舉行的普斯全國拼字比賽中大展拳腳。少數參賽者將進入翌日的半決賽，只要一個失誤就意味著被淘汰。我敢說，許多參賽者會默默祈禱：“千萬不要在拼第一個單詞時出錯?！敝辽龠@是我17年前的祈求，而它最終演變成了哀嘆。17年前，同樣的拼字比賽上，這個祈求一直在我的腦海里嗡嗡作響。

那年我14歲，賽前的焦慮心情令我根本無心欣賞華盛頓各著名紀念碑和紀念館。母親和我從肯塔基州飛到這里，但她對首都卻并不陌生。我的姐姐已經參加過三次全國拼字比賽，并在該比賽中取得了史無前例的三連冠佳績，那是她上六、七、八年級的時候。

時間一到，我就一頭扎進單詞里。在姐姐14歲、我12歲的時候，我們在一起訓練。我們從學校發的參考單詞表開始——數百個單詞用7號字體印在折疊起來的海報上，看著像一幅地圖。當印在折痕上的單詞被磨損得開始難以辨認

30)appoggiatura—that would never now prove useful. There went my 31)vaulting ambition， which didn’t know what it wanted and so flung itself everywhere: spelling bees， 32)tap dance contests， 33)thumb wars， whatever my sister was doing or had done. There went my mother， sighing somewhere in that pitying sea， gathering up her coat and purse. But I didn’t go to meet her just yet. I was 34)ushered offstage by an angel of a college student， 35)dewy and beautiful in her sympathy， telling me， in my brain-dead state， that we were going to the Comfort Room， a term with the 36)biblical weight of the Promised Land. I yielded to her like a lamb.

The Comfort Room was a room 37)cordoned off from parental or public interference. Inside， the most recent losers were sitting around a table abundant with junk food， in fairly credible 38)portrayals of calm and 39)normalcy. We 40)snacked on 41)Ho Hos and cheese sandwich 42)crackers. We casually mentioned the words that defeated us， a brief 43)bloodletting to initiate each new arrival， but then we dropped the subject of spelling altogether， as if we’d already moved on from missed words and lost opportunities， as if the specter of our common failure wouldn’t follow us forever. We were told we could stay as long as we wanted.

“花音”之類的詞——所有這一切都煙消云散了。我的勃勃野心也付諸東流。曾經我并不知道自己想要什么，所以我的野心隨處撒網：拼字比賽、踢踏舞比賽和拇指戰，只要是我姐姐在做或做過的我都躍躍欲試。母親也走了，她在遺憾海洋中的某處嘆息著，收拾好她的大衣和錢包。但我沒有立即去見她。我被一個天使般的大學生領下了臺，純潔美麗的她對我滿懷憐憫。并且，她在我的大腦處于死亡狀態的時候告訴我，我們將要去休息室，“休息室”是一個帶著樂土意味的神圣重量的術語。……