何小姐 Miss He

在常青藤放榜前几日, 我在网上遇到一个女孩. 而后常青藤放榜, 咱同时悲剧, 再一同为WL而纠结. 虽然她在我的MSN好友中, 但我预想她永远不会到这个空间来看我的文章, 所以大可放心写几句. 近来我时常与人谈到她, 并非我对她本人有多么深厚的感情, 而是她让我看到了一种截然不同的生活姿态. 她三年前独自来到纽约城生活, 自己租房自己买水电, 自己买菜做每一餐饭. 她学音乐, 弹钢琴有14年之久, 绘画曾学了8年. 作为音乐艺术生, 她有时为了个人演奏会要每日练琴到13个小时之久. 她讲时常边看电影边练琴, 大抵是 练习肌肉记忆: 注意力完全不在琴上仍能演奏出高山流水之乐. 她几乎从来不睡觉, 也许部分来自习惯, 部分来自父母的遗传. 我问她比别人多出那么多时间, 一定是学圣吧? 她说不是不是, 有数不尽的通宵她也在电影, 书和food network网站(各种食物及其制法)上度过.

我曾瞥过她原来写过的文章. 不同于我, 她总是很强烈很直接地挥洒自己的情感. 抒情随笔我也不是见得少, 但很少有人如她这样万分执着, 甚至许多时候几乎是逼迫自己. 于是我想, 也许这就是学音乐且非常要强的人的特质. 他们敢于呐喊, 敢于毕露锋芒, 却也更是心思细腻, 感慨千端.

其实我真得感谢这位朋友, 让我如此真切地体会了另一种人生方式. 走满极端? 但走极端在我这里从来都不是贬义词.

Several days before the Ivy League posted their admission results, I met a girl on the internet. Then we both encountered disasters in Ivy League admissions, and both suffered incredibly for the waitlists we were on. Though she is my friend on MSN, I figured she probably would never come to read my stuff, so I can write something about her without any worry : P Recently I often mentioned her when talking with friends, not because I hold very strong affection for her, but because she presented a lifestyle brand new to me.

Three years ago, she came to New York City alone. All by herself, she rented an apartment, paid for the electricity and water, bought food and made every meal in a day. Majoring in music, she played piano for 14 years, and learned painting for 8 years. Practicing piano for 13 hours a day to prepare for a personal concert was nothing rare to her. She told me sometimes she would watch movies while practicing piano, and I guess it was for muscle memory: thus she could still weave fantastic music from the piano even if her attention is totally not there. She almost never sleeps, maybe partly due to her habit, partly due to her heritage from parents. Once I asked: "how do you spend this much time that others do not have? Study?!" She said: "No, no. Countless nights were all about movies, books and foodnetwork.com."

I read her blog some time ago. Not like me, in her words she always floods her feelings out like mighty rapids, with extraordinary strength and directness. I have seen many passages solely written for feelings, yet seldom have I detected such kind of perseverance. So I thought, maybe this is the characteristic of people who study music and never tolerate failures. They dare to scream, to shine with all they obtained inside, yet also sensitive to details of feelings, and can be sentimental at times.

I should really thank this friend, for letting me savor such a different way of life. She bears too many extremities? Extremity is hardly ever a bad word in my dictionary.