After eleven years alive, I had lost all thoughts of calling somewhere home.经过十一年活着，我失去了所有的思考，呼吁某处回家。 Like a dry leaf on the wind of life, I went where it went, ever poised for the transport of its next gust.像干叶在风的生活，我就知道它去了哪里，任何时候都准备运输下次阵风。 It pointed to Yorkshire, so we went north.它指出，约克夏，所以我们前往朝鲜。 I was determined not to like it there.我决心不喜欢它的。
My cat spoke my thoughts that day, so I stayed silent.我的猫以我的想法那一天，所以我保持沉默。 Her metal-lined box sounded more full of banshee than cat, and after an hour of teeth and claws it succumbed to her wrath.她的金属内衬中听起来更充分的女妖比猫，并在一小时后的牙齿和爪子它屈从于她的愤怒。 She flew about, heedless of windows or steering wheel, finally to settle groaning for hours under the passenger seat.她飞到约，不顾Windows或方向盘，终于解决了几个小时呻吟的乘客座位。 She and I felt the same way about long journeys, and seemed equally pleased to move house.她和我感觉一样，关于长途跋涉，似乎同样高兴地搬家。
The house seemed to have narrowly survived a brunt of exceptional hatred from its last owners.众议院似乎死里逃生一首当其冲的特殊仇恨从去年的所有者。 The woodwork had paint thrown at it in a spite of bright violet or pink, the walls asphyxial yellow from nicotine.该木工油漆扔了它在尽管光明紫或粉红色，黄色的墙壁窒息从尼古丁。 Names were carved into windowsills, carpets more thrashed than trodden.名字被刻在窗台，地毯更轻取比走过。 Without human umpire, plants and trees were left to throttle one another in the grounds outside.没有人类裁判，植物和树木留给油门一个在外面的理由。 The adjoining shop—the reason for our purchase—had been forced to close for failing to meet the basic rules of health.隔壁商店的原因，我们的购买已被迫关闭不符合基本规则的健康。 Be glad that my memory forbids a description, but for the weevil holes in every packet.很高兴，我的记忆禁止的描述，但象洞，每一个数据包。 The hungry creatures invited themselves to join us in the house, but I suppose they left or starved eventually, as things were kept in tins from then on.饥饿的动物邀请他们加入我们的房子，但我猜想他们最终离开或饿死，因为东西留在了罐从那时起。
Secondary school began for me soon after our arrival.中学开始后不久，我的到来。 My mother—through kindness, to avoid my standing out from other pupils any more than my southern accent betrayed—followed the school uniform guidelines to a T. I did not hint until a year later that I was peculiarly distinctive in my Clarks shoes, A-line skirt two inches below the knee, and shirt with a top button that fastened down to neatly accommodate a tie.我的母亲，通过善意，以避免我站在任何其他学生超过我的南方口音背叛，遵循校服准则，以大纳我并没有暗示，直到一年后，我独有的特色在我克拉克鞋，阿在线裙子二英寸低于膝，衬衫最按钮，整齐地固定下来，以适应比赛。
Choice of seat on the school bus said everything about social rank, thus the clamour at 7.30 each morning; thirty or forty gnashing teenagers vying for the back seat, or as far back as they dared.选择座位的校车说，一切社会地位，从而在7月30日的呼声每天早晨; 30或40 gnashing青少年争夺后座，或早，他们不敢。 I, vying with a few for the front, so desperate to avoid confrontation, was heaved upward with the mass, often leaving a Clarks shoe behind as my feet quitted the ground.一，争夺少数的前面，因此迫切希望避免对抗，是抬向上的群众，往往留下了克拉克擦鞋落后我的双脚离开了地面。
I have forgotten what was taught to me at school, but I learned many new words and customs.我已经忘记了什么是教给我在学校，但我学到了许多新词和习俗。 I learned new skills too, such as dodging knives and staying the correct distance from brick fights.我学到新的技能太多，如偷税刀和下榻的正确距离砖打架。 I quickly discovered that hair-style and respect had an uncanny, almost perfect, correlation.我很快发现，发式和尊重有一个神秘的，近乎完美，相关。 I longed to study Latin, but would have won the wrong sort of attention, so took a sudden interest in metalwork instead.我渴望学习拉丁文，但赢得了错误类型的注意，所以突然兴趣金属代替。 “Is this it?” I wondered as I finished my first wrought iron candlestick. “这是什么？ ”我想知道，因为我完成我的第一个熟铁烛台。
Our first was the hardest winter the north had felt in decades.我们第一次是最难冬季北方认为在几十年。 It was hardened still by the boiler—beaten to within an inch of its life—breathing its last at Christmas when nothing could be done to help it.这是硬还是由锅炉殴打一英寸的范围内生命的呼吸最后在圣诞节时，没有什么可以做，以帮助它。 To quell our festive eagerness, and perhaps to stay warm, we took long walks.以平息我们的节日愿望，也许保持温暖，我们采取了长距离散步。 Drifts of snow towered far above us, drilled with hailstone tunnels like giant weevil-holes.漂移的积雪耸立远远高于我们，钻冰雹隧道样巨象洞。 We scraped tracks in the ice to receive shop deliveries.我们刮掉轨道冰铺接收交付。 Fizzy drinks froze on the lorry and gushed out of their bottles as they thawed.汽泡饮料冻结的货车和涌出了其瓶，因为它们解冻。
I assumed this was what living “up north” would be forever more: cold, leaky, weevil-holed and shaded with nicotine.我以为这就是生活“北上”将永远更多：冷，漏，象鼻虫孔和阴影与尼古丁。 Of course it was not.当然不是。 Our little shop soon flourished, and I grew some social standing on the back of it, as our forecourt became a fashionable teenage hang-out.我们的小店很快兴盛，我长大一定社会地位的背面，因为我们的前院成了一个时髦的少女杭了。 Like any 80s tween, life was all about riding horses or bicycles, eating sweets, and waiting for games to load from a tape recorder to a ZX Spectrum.像任何80吐温，生活都骑马或自行车，吃糖果，并等待游戏加载从录音机到ZX频谱。 “Is this it?” I sometimes wondered when I lost at Manic Miner. “这是吗？ ”有时候我想知道，当我失去了在躁狂矿工。 When will life begin?开始时，将生活？ Or does it not?或者是不是？ Does one just gradually look older but feel the same?没有一个公正逐步寻找老，但同样的感觉？
By thirteen I had grown the right sort of hair style and grown out of my Clarks shoes.由13余增长在正确的发型和发展了我国克拉克鞋。 Life was all about baby-sitting enough during the week to buy enough Pernod in bars at weekends to obliterate dull memories of evenings spent baby-sitting in the week.生命是所有关于保姆足够的一周期间购买足够的保乐力加在酒吧在周末抹杀沉闷的回忆晚上花了保姆的一周内。 “Is this it?” I wondered, waking bruised and confused, but doing it again for want of a better idea. “这是什么？ ”我不知道，醒来擦伤和困惑，但这样做又缺乏一个更好的主意。 “Must laughter and relief be so quick to perish?” “必须笑声和救济如此迅速灭亡？ ”
At sixteen I moved on, alone, packing all my unanswered questions in some part of my memory labeled “York”.在16余动议，单独包装我的所有悬而未决的问题在一些部分我的记忆中标示为“纽约” 。
* * * * * *
The leaf, twenty-one years on, has settled in York again.叶，二十一年上，已经定居在纽约再次。 Only twenty-one years?只有二十一年？ Is this the same life even?这是相同的生活甚至？ These city walls stood for a millennium, but now in the space of my life are they so changed?这些城墙主张千年，但现在在我的生活空间，是他们改变了吗？ Through my open window, breezes bring the bells of the Minster, surging like a tide.通过我敞开的窗户，海风带来的钟声的大教堂，像浪潮高涨。 This is it.这是它。 Strangers smile at me in the road, one, two, three, before I realise I was already smiling, and they perhaps politely returning.陌生人微笑在我的路，一，二，三，然后我意识到我已经面带微笑，他们也许有礼貌返回。 Was that old cherry tree there in those days too, hurling confetti into a brilliant sky like the mother of some cherished bride?是旧的樱桃树，在那些日子里也扔糖果变成灿烂的天空像母亲的一些宝贵的新娘？ Is that the river inn where once I turned sixteen in a frenzy of loud friends, a cheap euphoria of sunny cider, my feet lolling in the green of the water?是，河客栈在一次我转过身16在疯狂的大声朋友，廉价兴奋苹果酒的阳光，我的脚lolling的绿色的水？ There are other loud frenzies now, and some look my current age.还有其他一些响亮疯狂现在，有些期待我目前的年龄。 Is their joy as hollow as my own once was?是他们的喜悦作为空心作为我自己曾经是？ As fickle as a draught?正如薄情的吃水？ Are they still wondering “Is this it?”他们仍然不知道“这是吗？ ”
It was not this place that was bleak then; it was these eyes that saw it so, and these same eyes that see it beautiful now.这不是这个地方是那么暗淡，这是这些眼睛看到它这样，这些相同的眼睛看到它美丽的现在。 Many times I have thought and said that only since learning meditation do I really see; before I merely looked, and even then reluctantly.很多次我想和说，只有从学习冥想我真的见;之前，我只是希望，即使在那时不情愿。 Again it shows itself to me as true, revisiting the same place on the long circular journey of life.它再次表明自己对我来说真正的，重新在同一地点的长期圆形的生命旅程。 I thank Sri Chinmoy for teaching me to see and to walk gladly in the world.我感谢斯里兰卡清教学我看到并愉快地走在世界上。 He has travelled so much further in his life journey but lives on to encourage those, like me, who are only just setting out.他走过这么多进一步，但他的生命旅程生活，鼓励那些像我一样，谁才刚刚确定。
Journey 西游记
Onward, upward my heart proceeds.以后，我的心向上的收益。
I, the finite, perceive the One.一，有限的，认为一个。
His soulful boundless Heart of Love他深情无限的爱之心
Awakes my bosom’s inner Sun. Awakes我怀里的内心周日
Impossible deeds of yore to-day不可能的事迹昔日的日常
Have reached their lofty wonder-goals.已达到其崇高的怀疑目标。
My heart is changed, my world is changed,我的心变了，我的世界正在改变，
I love all souls and own all souls.我爱所有的灵魂和自己的所有的灵魂。
I inspire the world to forget its woe,余激励世界忘记了呼吸，共命运，
I long for its inner cry to increase,我渴望的内心哭泣增加，
The far no more remains afar;在目前还没有更多的远方;
Now fast approaches my mind’s release.现在我的脑海快速办法释放。
— Sri Chinmoy - 斯里兰卡清
Excerpt from My First Friendship With The Muse by Sri Chinmoy摘自我国第一友谊，缪斯的斯里兰卡清
