喃喃心語

One of my earliest childhood memories is of a visit to our doctor， in a village near the farm where I grew up. It was during this visit that I first learned I had a 1）heart murmur.

Like a scene from a 2）Norman Rockwell painting， the old doctor lifted me onto his lap and listened intently to my chest with his 3）stethoscope for what seemed like a very long time. Then he leaned over to me and quietly said： “Did you know your heart talks to you？ It is whispering something and if you listen very carefully， it will always tell you what to do.”

I don’t know that I fully understood what he was saying. But I was sure that my father， whom the doctor had just invited out onto the back porch to have a chat and a cigarette， would understand.

That old country doctor had diagnosed a problem with my 4）aortic valve， and he made his diagnosis without the aid of sophisticated diagnostic tools—no 5）echocardiogram， no 6）MRI， no 7）EKG. Just a finely tuned ear developed over the years spent listening to the hearts of old farmers and old farm wives.

I grew accustomed to the term “murmur” as a child， and for the longest time I was convinced that someone， or some thing， lived in my heart. At the very least， just as the doctor had told me， I believed my heart itself was speaking to me in a murmuring， whispering sort of way， in a language I did not yet comprehend.

Over the course of the next six decades， doctor after doctor would comment on my “defective heart.”But as a kid growing up on the farm， that imperfect heart was my constant companion， my friend.

As I lay in bed at night， I could hear my heart beating through my pillow. Its constant whisper lured my imagination away from fears of savages with 8）tomahawks hiding behind the bedroom door and the unearthly sound of the owls calling in the pine trees outside my window.

My heart’s heavy pounding kept me from following my best friend’s dare to walk across the beams in the 9）hayloft some 30 feet above the wooden floor of the barn.

The quickening of its beat as I took my first draw on a Sweet Caporal cigarette—stolen from under the front seat of my father’s ’59 Pontiac—made that draw my last.

在我最早期的童年記憶當中，有一段是去我成長的農場附近的一個村莊，拜訪我們的醫生。在這一次探訪中，我第一次知道我的心臟有雜音。

就像諾曼·洛克威爾某一幅畫作中的場景一樣，這位老醫生把我抱到他的大腿上，用聽診器仔細地聽我的胸腔，聽了好像很久很久。然后他靠向我，輕聲說：“你知道你的心在跟你說話嗎？它正在喃喃細語，如果你仔細傾聽，它總會告訴你怎么做。”

我不知道自己是否能完全明白他在說什么。不過我肯定我的父親會清楚知道，醫生剛剛邀請他到后門的游廊去聊聊天，抽根煙。

那位年老的鄉村醫生診斷出我的主動脈瓣有問題，他并沒有依靠任何高級的診斷工具就做出了這個診斷——沒有超聲心動圖，沒有核磁共振成像，也沒有心電圖。僅憑一只聽力敏銳的耳朵，那耳朵憑著多年為年邁的農夫和農婦們診聽心臟的經驗而練就。

打小開始，我就慢慢習慣了“喃喃”這個詞，極長一段時間里，我深信有一個人，或者某一樣物體，生活在我的心臟里。至少，就如醫生對我說的，我相信我的心臟以一種喃喃低語的方式、以某種我還不能理解的語言在對我說話。

在接下來的六十個年頭里，一個又一個醫生為我那“有缺陷的心臟”給出醫囑。但是，作為一個在農場里長大的孩子，那顆不完美的心臟是我一直以來的伙伴，是我的朋友。

每當夜里我躺在床上，我能透過枕頭聽見心臟跳動的聲音。它不間斷的低語聲，把我的想象力從恐懼中吸引開來，不再害怕那些藏在臥室門后拿著斧頭的野蠻人和窗外松樹上貓頭鷹發出的可怕叫聲。……