08/28 抄書

The old dramatic pattern, with its concept of linear history moving the human race ineluctably to its goal in the modern world, depended on concealed principles of transcendence inappropriate to the human understanding of human affairs. The trinity of acts composing the great drama of human history and its concept of the modern epoch as not just the latest but the last act of the play bear witness to its eschatological origins, and such notions seem to me peculiarly inappropriate to so human an enterprise as that of the historian. But I also find the traditional scheme unsatisfactory because it is not dramatic enough. It fails to accommodate the sense of contingency and, therefore, suspense - the sense that the drama might have turned out otherwise - that belongs to all human temporal experience. Though it has survived for over five centuries, for example, I see no reason to assume that the anthropological vision we owe to the Renaissance is destined to triumph forever over the forces arrayed against it, and much in the modern world suggests the contrary.

But the more human concept of the drama of history that had its effective origins in the Renaissance understanding of culture overcomes these various disadvantages. Its pluralism implies the possibility of a multiplicity of historical dramas, both simultaneous and successive; and so it relieves us of the embarrassment, inherent in a linear and eschatological vision of time, of repeatedly having to reclassify in other terms what for a previous generation seemed modern. Since it perceives history as a part of culture and also, therefore, a human creation, it permits us constantly to reconstruct the dramas of history and so to see the past in fresh relationships to ourselves. Above all, since it insists on no particular outcome for the dramas of history, it leaves the future open.

-- William J. Bouwsma, "The Renaissance and the Drama of Western History", in idem., <A Useable Past>, pp. 361-2.

08/13 柏林晨霧

從上星期三開始，一個人在柏林完成工作坊餘下的十天工作，同時在周中早晚和週末全天自己帶小兔。不知不覺已經過去了將近五天。這張照片是某天一早推她出門散步時拍的。

小兔現在的作息基本已經穩定下來。每天早上六點到七點之間起床，隔天跟我一起洗澡，然後上午小睡一次、中午一次、傍晚一次，玩到八點多困倦了，就用熱毛巾擦擦臉和小手，睡下去。夜間大概會驚醒一次，一般把安慰奶嘴放回去，就會重新自己睡倒。

此前，小兔任何時候如果大哭，都會造成我極度的心神不寧，好像是自己代入到她委屈與生氣的情緒裏。某人反覆告誡我，應該給她一些自己的空間，試著讓她學會自己睡著，不要一聽到哭聲就衝過去，讓她看到媽媽過來又走開，會哭得更加厲害。然而兩人一起帶她的時候，我便傾向於扮演六神無主的媽媽，也曾因此而發生不愉快的衝突。上週某天夜裡兩點半，小兔忽然大哭驚醒，數次安撫之後仍然哭著爬起來拍床欄。我實在沒有辦法，只得用被子蒙上頭，在心裡默數一到一百，想著如果五分鐘過去仍然大哭就起來安慰。結果數到一百五十下左右的時候，哭聲減弱，她好像忽然發現旁邊的安撫奶嘴，自己拿起來放到嘴裡，咕噥了幾聲便睡著了，不一會兒就傳出沈沈鼻息。這一覺於是安然睡到天亮。

經此一役，我發現自己似乎開始學會用另一種態度去感知她發出的訊息：如果不會讓自己的情緒起伏佔據注意力的中心（她為什麼又在哭，我這個媽媽好爛，好沒用），而是虛心去傾聽，好像能夠讀出更多試探性的信號，然後再全身心地去愛撫，告訴她媽媽在旁邊，並且明白她的感受。悠長的夏日午後，聽著外面風吹樹葉的沙沙聲，以及隔壁房間她在小床中的均勻呼吸聲，似乎很久沒有如此平靜過了。

或許值得驚訝的是，大部份負面的自憐或自我厭棄的情緒，都是由於害怕被自己所愛的他人所看低或厭棄而產生的。然而天長日久，這消極的情緒竟然便成了愛的代名詞，愛一個人便是怕被她／他討厭，卻忘了感情得以紮根生長的當初，正是由於兩個人彼此的喜歡，和對自己值得被愛的確信。上週四，借白天時間到附近商業街偷閒逛一逛，在一家小店買到兩條打折的裙子，布料舒適，剪裁熨帖，走在街上都覺得神采飛揚起來。然而某人卻不在身邊。又或者，正是因為他不在身邊，反而某種程度上去除了膽怯和怕令人失望的心態，敢於走進小店，花上半個小時、試幾件衣服。但又何必那麼害怕擔誤別人的時間，努力將自己的願望與存在遮蔽起來藏好？

生命中那麼重要的人們哪，說來好笑。我正是剛剛開始明白這個道理。