When Relationships Change: Anne Morrow Lindbergh on Embracing the Intermittency and Mutability of Love
“God is Change,” Octavia Butler wrote , channeling in poetic truth the fundamental scientific fact of the universe .
“上帝就是变化”，奥克塔维亚·巴特勒写道，以诗意的真理传达了宇宙的基本科学事实。
We know this.
我们知道这一点。
And yet to be human is to long for constancy, to crave the touchingly impossible assurance that what we have and cherish will be ours to hold forever, just as it is now.
然而，生而为人，就是渴望坚贞，渴望得到令人感动的不可能的保证，即我们所拥有和珍惜的东西将永远属于我们，就像现在一样。
We build homes — fragile haikus of concrete and glass to be unwritten by the first earthquake or flood.
我们建造房屋——用混凝土和玻璃建造的脆弱的俳句，在第一次地震或洪水中无法书写。
We make vows — fragile promises to be upheld by selves we haven’t met in a future we can’t predict.
我们许下誓言——在我们无法预测的未来，我们未曾谋面的自己会兑现脆弱的承诺。
The dearer we hold something, the more tightly we cling to the dream of constancy, the more zealously we torture ourselves with the belief that any change is loss.
我们越珍视某样东西，我们就越紧紧地抓住永恒的梦想，我们就越热心地折磨自己，相信任何改变都是损失。
Naturally, it is in our intimate relationships that we most come to fear change and most suffer when it comes — a fear not at all groundless, given what relationship rupture does to our limbic system .
自然地，在我们的亲密关系中，我们最害怕改变，并且在改变发生时最痛苦——考虑到关系破裂对我们边缘系统的影响，这种恐惧并非毫无根据。
The salve for this singularly discomposing suffering comes not from ossifying change but from changing our beliefs about it.
这种令人不安的痛苦的解药不是来自僵化的改变，而是来自改变我们对此的信念。
Such salutary recalibration is what the aviator and writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh (June 22, 1906–February 7, 2001) offers in Gift from the Sea ( public library ) — a book I found in a Little Free Library and felt immediately speaking to my soul, drawn from the diaries Lindbergh kept during two weeks of solitude on the ocean shore “searching for a new pattern of living” as she was entering the second half of her life, that vital “period of second flowering” when one is “free for growth of mind, heart and talent.”
飞行员兼作家安妮·莫罗·林德伯格（Anne Morrow Lindbergh，1906年6月22日至2001年2月7日）在《来自大海的礼物》（公共图书馆）中提供了这种有益的重新调整。我在一个小型免费图书馆找到了这本书，感觉立即与我的灵魂对话，这本书取自林德伯格在海边孤独的两周“寻找新的生活模式”时所写的日记，当时她正进入她的后半生。这是一个至关重要的“第二次绽放的时期”，此时一个人“可以自由地发展思想、心灵和才能”。
The pure relationship, how beautiful it is!
纯洁的关系，是多么美好！
How easily it is damaged, or weighed down with irrelevancies — not even irrelevancies, just life itself, the accumulations of life and of time.
它是多么容易被损坏，或者被无关紧要的东西压垮——甚至不是无关紧要的，只是生命本身，生命和时间的积累。
For the first part of every relationship is pure, whether it be with friend or lover, husband or child.
因为每段关系的第一部分都是纯洁的，无论是与朋友还是情人、丈夫还是孩子。
It is pure, simple and unencumbered.
它是纯粹、简单、无负担的。
It is like the artist’s vision before he has to discipline it into form, or like the flower of love before it has ripened to the firm but heavy fruit of responsibility.
这就像艺术家的愿景必须将其塑造成形式，或者就像爱情之花必须成熟，结出坚实而沉重的责任果实。
Every relationship seems simple at its start.
每段关系一开始似乎都很简单。
The simplicity of first love, or friendliness, the mutuality of first sympathy seems, at its initial appearance — even if merely in exciting conversation across a dinner table — to be a self-enclosed world.
初恋的简单，或者说友善，最初的同情的相互性，乍一看——即使只是在餐桌上令人兴奋的谈话——似乎是一个自我封闭的世界。
Two people listening to each other, two shells meeting each other, making one world between them…
两个人互相倾听，两个贝壳相遇，形成一个世界……
It is free of ties or claims, unburdened by responsibilities, by worry about the future or debts to the past.
它没有任何束缚或要求，没有责任、对未来的担忧或过去的债务。
And then how swiftly, how inevitably the perfect unity is invaded; the relationship changes; it becomes complicated, encumbered by its contact with the world.
那么，完美的统一是多么迅速、多么不可避免地受到了侵犯；关系发生变化；它变得复杂，并因与世界的接触而受到阻碍。
While this is true in most relationships, Lindbergh observes, the pattern is most pronounced — and most painful — in our most intimate bonds.
林德伯格观察到，虽然在大多数关系中都是如此，但这种模式在我们最亲密的关系中最为明显，也是最痛苦的。
And yet the pain we experience as a relationship exits this early stage of unselfconscious mutual elation is not evidence of loss — it is evidence of our misshapen ideals of closeness as a static pattern of attachment.
然而，当一段关系结束了这种无意识的相互兴奋的早期阶段时，我们所经历的痛苦并不是失去的证据——而是我们将亲密理想作为一种静态依恋模式的畸形的证据。
She offers an alternative orientation to the inevitability of change:
她对变革的必然性提出了另一种观点：
We mistakenly feel that failure to maintain its exact original pattern is tragedy.
我们错误地认为，不能保持其原有的模式就是悲剧。
It is true, of course, the original relationship is very beautiful.
确实如此，当然，原来的关系是非常美好的。
Its self-enclosed perfection wears the freshness of a spring morning.
它的自我封闭的完美带着春天早晨的清新。
Forgetting about the summer to come, one often feels one would like to prolong the spring of early love, when two people stand as individuals, without past or future, facing each other.
忘记即将到来的夏天，人们常常会想延长早恋的春天，两个人作为个体，没有过去，也没有未来，面对面。
One resents any change, even though one knows that transformation is natural and part of the process of life and its evolution.
人们憎恨任何改变，尽管人们知道转变是自然的，并且是生命及其进化过程的一部分。
Like its parallel in physical passion, the early ecstatic stage of a relationship cannot continue always at the same pitch of intensity.
就像肉体的激情一样，一段关系的早期狂喜阶段不可能总是以同样的强度持续下去。
It moves to another phase of growth which one should not dread, but welcome as one welcomes summer after spring.
它进入了另一个生长阶段，人们不应该害怕，而是欢迎它，就像人们欢迎一个又一个春天一样。
At the heart of this dread is our unwillingness to relinquish the polished self-image we see in the light-filled eyes of the other in those early stages of mutual infatuation, before we have touched each other’s darkness, before we have met the hungry ghosts of each other’s unmet needs.
这种恐惧的核心是，在我们触及彼此的黑暗面、在我们满足彼此未满足的需求的饥饿鬼魂之前，在相互迷恋的早期阶段，我们不愿意放弃在对方充满光明的眼睛中看到的优美的自我形象。
We long for that image, perfect and haloed with adoration, to become our identity, seeking to make of love a flattering mirror in which to find our best selves, tasking the other with the emotional brunt of bearing the parts we don’t want to look at.
我们渴望那个完美的、带着崇拜光环的形象成为我们的身份，试图把爱打造成一面讨人喜欢的镜子，在其中找到最好的自己，让对方在情感上首当其冲地承受我们不想看到的部分。
Lindbergh pulls back the curtain on the most damaging myth handed down to us by the Romantics:
林德伯格揭开了浪漫主义者留给我们的最具破坏性的神话的帷幕：
Certainly, one has the illusion that one will find oneself in being loved for what one really is, not for a collection of functions.
当然，人们有一种幻想，认为自己会因为自己的本来面目而被爱，而不是因为一系列功能而被爱。
But can one actually find oneself in someone else?
但一个人真的能在别人身上找到自己吗？
In someone else’s love?
在别人的爱里？
Or even in the mirror someone else holds up for one?
或者甚至在镜子里有人举起一个？
I believe that true identity is found…
我相信真正的身份会被发现......
in creative activity springing from within.
在从内部涌现的创造性活动中。
It is found, paradoxically, when one loses oneself.
矛盾的是，当一个人迷失自我时，就会发现它。
One must lose one’s life to find it…
一个人必须失去自己的生命才能找到它……
Only a refound person can refind a personal relationship.
只有重新找回的人才能重新找回人际关系。
The twin root of our suffering in a changing relationship is the expectation — the demand, even — that the other’s love be total and permanent, reserved for us alone, unshared with other priorities and passions, those natural constituents of a fully developed personality and a fully inhabited life.
在不断变化的关系中，我们痛苦的双重根源是期望——甚至是要求——对方的爱是完全和永久的，只为我们自己保留，不与其他优先事项和激情分享，这些是充分发展的人格和充分居住的生活的自然组成部分。
Lindbergh writes:
林德伯格写道：
We all wish to be loved alone…
我们都希望独自被爱……
Perhaps, as Auden says in his poem, this is a fundamental error in mankind.
或许，正如奥登在他的诗中所说，这是人类的根本错误。
For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone.
因为每个女人和每个男人骨子里滋生的错误都渴望得到它所不能拥有的东西，不是普遍的爱，而是被单独爱。
Lindbergh recounts discussing this verse with an Indian philosopher, who made a striking observation — while mutuality is the essence of love and therefore it is natural for us to wish for it, it is in the time-sense that we err.
林德伯格讲述了与一位印度哲学家讨论这节经文时的情景，这位哲学家提出了一个惊人的观察——虽然相互性是爱的本质，因此我们希望得到爱是很自然的，但从时间意义上来说，我们犯了错误。
“It is when we desire continuity of being loved alone that we go wrong,” he told her.
“当我们渴望持续被单独爱时，我们就会出错，”他告诉她。
The fear of change dissolves when we come to see love not as a vector of constancy but as a rosary of nows, its core promise not that of permanence but of presence.
当我们不再将爱视为恒久不变的载体，而是当下的一串念珠，其核心承诺不是永恒而是存在时，对变化的恐惧就会消失。
Hannah Arendt would affirm this a generation after Lindbergh in her superb meditation on love and the fear of loss , insisting that “fearlessness is what love seeks [which] exists only in the complete calm that can no longer be shaken by events expected of the future…
汉娜·阿伦特在林白之后的一代人中肯定了这一点，她对爱和对失去的恐惧进行了精彩的冥想，坚持认为“无所畏惧是爱所寻求的，它只存在于完全的平静中，而这种平静不会再被未来预期的事件所动摇……
Hence the only valid tense is the present, the Now.”
因此，唯一有效的时态是现在时。”
Only by meeting each now on its own terms, Lindberg argues, can we allay the reflexive ache of perceiving change as loss, reframing it instead as fertile evolution:
林德伯格认为，只有现在按照各自的条件来满足每个人的需求，我们才能减轻将变化视为损失的反射性疼痛，并将其重新定义为丰富的进化：
One learns to accept the fact that no permanent return is possible to an old form of relationship; and, more deeply still, that there is no holding of a relationship to a single form.
人们学会接受这样一个事实：旧的关系形式不可能永久回归；更深入地说，不存在与单一形式的关系。
This is not tragedy but part of the ever-recurrent miracle of life and growth.
这不是悲剧，而是不断出现的生命和成长奇迹的一部分。
All living relationships are in process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building themselves new forms.
所有活生生的关系都处于变化、扩展的过程中，并且必须不断地建立新的形式。
But there is no single fixed form to express such a changing relationship.
但并没有单一的固定形式来表达这种不断变化的关系。
Those able to configure their relationships with such fluidity of form, Lindbergh notes, are “pioneers trying to find a new path through the maze of tradition, convention and dogma.” Auden was one himself — his relationship with the young poet Chester Kallman, like that of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West , shape-shifted from friend to lover and back again over the last quarter century of Auden’s life.
林德伯格指出，那些能够以如此流畅的形式来配置自己的关系的人，是“试图在传统、惯例和教条的迷宫中寻找新道路的先驱者”。奥登本人就是这样的人——他与年轻诗人切斯特·卡尔曼的关系，就像弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫和维塔·萨克维尔-韦斯特的关系一样，在奥登生命的最后四分之一个世纪里从朋友变成了情人，然后又回到了朋友。
Ultimately, our fear of change is a trap of self-limitation, keeping relationships from deepening and broadening to encompass the full range of who we are as complete human beings, as dynamic processes in continual state of becoming, which in turn makes possible the thrill of continual mutual discovery.
归根结底，我们对改变的恐惧是一个自我限制的陷阱，阻碍了关系的深化和拓宽，无法涵盖我们作为完整的人类的全部，作为不断变化的动态过程，这反过来又使不断相互发现的兴奋成为可能。
Lindbergh writes:
林德伯格写道：
One comes in the end to realize that there is no permanent pure-relationship and there should not be.
人们最终会认识到，不存在也不应该存在永久的纯粹关系。
It is not even something to be desired.
这甚至不是我们所希望的。
The pure relationship is limited, in space and in time.
纯粹的关系在空间和时间上都是有限的。
In its essence it implies exclusion.
从本质上讲，它意味着排斥。
It excludes the rest of life, other relationships, other sides of personality, other responsibilities, other possibilities in the future.
它排除了生活的其余部分、其他关系、性格的其他方面、其他责任、未来的其他可能性。
It excludes growth.
它排除了增长。
With an eye to the best kind of pure-relationship — “the meeting of two whole fully developed people as persons” — and with the recognition that “the light shed by any good relationship illuminates all relationships,” she considers the core dynamic of such a relationship:
着眼于最好的纯粹关系——“两个完整发展的人作为人的相遇”——并认识到“任何良好关系所发出的光芒都会照亮所有关系”，她认为这种关系的核心动力是：
A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules.
良好的关系有像舞蹈一样的模式，并且建立在一些相同的规则之上。
The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern…
伙伴们不需要紧紧抓住，因为他们以同样的模式自信地前行……
To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding.
重触意味着阻止图案并冻结运动，以检查其展开的不断变化的美丽。
There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing.
这里没有占有欲、紧握的手臂、沉重的手的容身之处；只有最简单的接触。
Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back…
时而手挽手，时而面对面，时而背靠背……
Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.
因为他们知道他们是伙伴，步调一致，共同创造模式，并在无形中受到滋养。
The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment.
这样的模式的快乐不仅是创造的快乐或参与的快乐，更是活在当下的快乐。
Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined.
轻盈的触感和活在当下是交织在一起的。
One cannot dance well unless one is completely in time with the music, not leaning back to the last step or pressing forward to the next one, but poised directly on the present step as it comes.
一个人不能跳得好，除非一个人完全与音乐合拍，不向后靠到最后一步或向前迈出下一步，而是直接在当前步骤上保持平衡。
With this, she returns to the correct time-scale of love — not constancy but intermittency, measured out by the metronome of presence:
这样，她就回到了爱情的正确时间尺度——不是持续性，而是间歇性，由存在的节拍器来衡量：
When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment.
当你爱一个人时，你不会一直、以完全相同的方式、时时刻刻地爱他们。
It is an impossibility.
这是不可能的。
It is even a lie to pretend to.
假装甚至是谎言。
And yet this is exactly what most of us demand.
但这正是我们大多数人所要求的。
We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.
我们对生命、爱情和人际关系的潮起潮落缺乏信心。
We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb.
我们在潮流中跳跃，在退潮中恐惧地抵抗。
We are afraid it will never return.
我们担心它永远不会回来。
We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity — in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
我们坚持永久性、持续性、连续性；当唯一可能的连续性，在生活中和在爱情中，是在成长中，在流动性中——在自由中，从某种意义上说，舞者是自由的，在他们经过时几乎没有接触，而是以相同模式合作的伙伴。
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even.
唯一真正的安全感不是拥有或拥有，不是要求或期待，甚至不是希望。
Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.
一段关系中的安全感既不在于怀旧地回顾过去，也不在于恐惧或期待地展望未来，而在于活在当下的关系中并接受它现在的样子。
Complement these fragments of Gift from the Sea — a revelatory read in its entirety — with philosopher Martin Buber on love and what it means to live fully in the present , then revisit Thich Nhat Hanh on the four Buddhist mantras for turning fear into love .
补充一下《来自大海的礼物》的这些片段——一本具有启示意义的完整读物——与哲学家马丁·布伯探讨爱以及充分活在当下的意义，然后重温一行禅师关于转恐惧为爱的四句佛教咒语的内容。