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It happened again,just before Christmas.My parents have a dog,and my boyfriend and I were walking him around their Seattle neighborhood.The dog,a genial black Labrador named Beau,trotted ahead of us,his coat shiny in the light rain,while we walked silently,the hoods of our jackets swishing past our cold ears.（注：genial：友好的；Labrador：拉布拉多猎犬；trot：小跑，慢跑；hood：（大衣等上的）风帽；swish：（尤指衣服）沙沙作响。） Like the rest of Seattle,my old neighborhood has grown richer over the years,and as the homes have acquired electronic gates and sport utility vehicles（注：sport utility vehicle:=SUV，运动型多功能车。）,they seem to have lost their people.We had seen no one since we left the house.And then we saw them.
The only people dog walkers tend to meet are other dog walkers.A block ahead another couple,tall and dark-haired,appeared on the corner.Their dog,a young russet retriever,dashed across the street,barreling toward us and then reeling away,delighted to see other living creatures.（注：russet：赤褐色的，黄褐色的；retriever：（经专门训练会衔回击落之飞禽的）中型猎犬；barrel：〈美俚〉高速行进；reel：向后快退。） "Lucy! Lucy!" her owners called futilely（注：futilely：徒劳地，无效地。） after her.She circled us a few times and then led us up the road.We said hello to her owners.They were young,like us,and smiling and open-faced（注：open-faced：坦率的。）.The woman carried an umbrella over her head;the man wore a University of Wisconsin（注：University of Wisconsin：威斯康星大学，位于美国威斯康星州。） sweatshirt.They seemed like new arrivals,exploring the neighborhood for the first time."Do you live around here?" asked the woman,eager.
I hesitated."No,"I said," but my parents do."And I gestured vaguely toward the southeast,as if my parents' home were visible across open fields instead of obscured（注：obscure：遮蔽，隐藏。） behind hills and other houses.Beau stood patiently at my side;Lucy leaped a low wall and began pawing under the bracken.（注：paw：（动物）用爪抓；bracken：欧洲蕨。）We talked for a bit,the rain pocking（注：pock：使有凹坑。） off the woman's umbrella.I said we lived in Eugene,but that I had grown up here,in Seattle.We introduced our dogs,but not ourselves.I liked the young couple;they seemed bright,and energetic,and interesting.But I wanted to keep walking,to avoid telling them my name or where,exactly,my parents lived.I used the dog as an excuse,and we parted,they moving down the hill and we moving up.At the top I paused,showed by regret.Nice people,nice conversation,and yet I had told them nothing.I had been polite,but not truly friendly.That's what people from Seattle are always said to be like:aloof in spite of ourselves,（注：aloof：冷淡的，冷漠的；in spite of oneself：不由自主地。）
Every time I catch myself being a Seattleite（注：Seattleite：居住或来自于西雅图的人。）,I'm too late.I did it once on a Seattle city bus,when I was in high school;I tried to give a fellow rider directions,and realized only after the bus had rumbled off how much simpler it would have been to have shown her the bus shelter around the corner instead.（注：rumble：发出轰隆隆的响声；bus shelter：公车候车亭。）On Christmas Day last year,just a few days after that dog walk in the rain,I fell victim once more.It was late at night,after the holiday's big dinner party,and as I carted empty wine bottles outside,a taxi driver hailed me from the street.（注：cart：〈非正式〉运送，提（尤指重物）；hail：呼喊，大声招呼。）
He was a young,tired-looking Somalian（注：Somalian：索马里人，索马里为非洲东部的一个国家。） who had gotten turned around so many times in my neighborhood's winding streets that he had given up.The address he wanted wasn't far off,but it wasn't ours.Hekept repeating it,hopeful,willing me to finally succumb（注：succumb：屈服。） and admit that yes,actually,I did need a taxi.I tried to give him directions.He didn't have a map.I could have gone inside and gotten my parents' old map of Seattle and shown him where to go.I could have drawn a little map for him.Instead,I apologized and said I hoped he found the address and went back inside and shut the door.
I didn't even wish him a happy Christmas.
Some people,like my college professor whose English accent remained crisp even after decades in America,do not shift on the outside.（注：crisp：干脆的，干净利落的；shift：改变。）I do not have the strength,or perhaps the rigidity,to display always the same persona.（注：rigidity：坚定；persona：指在人前表现出的面貌。）When I visit relatives in Georgia and North Carolina,my voice begins to drawl; my causal" Hey,mom" elongates into" Hello,mother."（注：drawl：拉长腔调讲话；elon gate：拉长，延长（不用于时间）。） For two years,when my family lived in London,I had the voice of a middle-class English girl who ate sweeties and went on holiday.And for more than a dozen years,I lived in Seattle.I absorbed the distant friendliness of my Emerald City neighbors and mimicked it perfectly even while recognizing its chilliness.（注：Emerald City：指西雅图，西雅图的别名为“翡翠之城”；mimic：模仿，过去式为mimicked。）I even missed it when I lived elsewhere,in cities in the Northeast or California,where the cool politeness of the Northwest seemed like a balm compared to the astringent,demanding squawks of people wedged into more crowded lives.（注：balm：安慰（物）；astringent：（话语）尖刻的；squawk：（大声或尖声的）诉苦，抗议；wedge：强行挤入。）But then I moved to Oregon.
On one of my first days living in Portland,I walked into an enormous Fred Meyer and began wandering the aisles.（注：Portland：波特兰，位于美国俄勒冈(Oregon)州；Fred Meyer：美国最大的连锁零售商之一，1922年创办于波特兰；aisle：通道，过道。） A clerk looked up from the shelves at me and broke into a toothy grin（注：a toothy grin：露齿一笑。）."Hey,how are ya?" she asked,her voice full of the genuine enthusiasm of seeing an unexpected friend.I stopped,startled."Fine,thanks.And you?" I answered.She was not,as I had momentarily thought,somebody I knew;she was simply an employee doing her job,greeting customers.But she was the most sincerely cheerful clerk I'd ever encountered.I smiled back,stepped past her boxes of inventory and slunk around acorner.（注：inventory：〈美〉存货，库存；slink：偷偷溜走。）
Within a few weeks,I realized that she had not been preternaturally（注：preternaturally：不寻常地，异常地。）happy;every time I went into a store or public library,total strangers seemed delighted to see me.Even the socially maladjusted,such as my next-door neighbor,liked this idea of verbal exchange ;when I walked past her one morning with just a nod and a smile,she yelled at my retreating back,"Hey,what's your problem? Can't you even say hi?"（注：maladjusted：性格与环境格格不入的，心理失调的；retreat：后退。）
The year we moved to Oregon,my boyfriend and I went to see his family in Boston for Christmas.We had to do some last-minute shopping and joined several dozen other people in a tiny store full of pop-up（注：pop-up：（贺卡等）中间有立体图片的。）birthday cards and cute gifts.At the cash register,the woman ahead of me got out a vividly colored twenty-dollar bill and spread it flat on the counter,framing it with her hands.Like a magpie（注：magpie：喜鹊，饶舌者。）,I eyed it admiringly."Is that one of those new twenties（注：twenties：此处指面值20美元的纸币。）？"I asked."They're so pretty."
The woman turned her head and looked at me,expressionless,before turning away.She hadn't taken out her cash to enjoy its charm; she'd wanted to show that she was in a hurry:Her money was ready,come on,let's move! She paid and she left.I should have felt chastised（注：chastise：惩罚。）.Instead I was amused.What's the hurry? I wanted to call after her.We could have had a nice chat.
This year,a few days after I met the taxi driver,my boyfriend and I went walking in downtown Seattle.It was dusk,the western sky still a bright turquoise（注：turquoise：青绿色的。）below the first stars.We had eaten an early dinner and were walking,arm in arm,south along Second Avenue,below the symphony hall and above the art museum.He had just told a joke,and I was laughing;on the corner,an old woman,swaddled in a heavy purple parka,held out her hand to us,asking for spare change.（注：swaddle：用（布）包住；parka：（有风帽、里面有毛的）风雪大衣；spare change：零钱。） Up the street a group of people walked toward us.I was looking at my boyfriend and the sky and the woman and ahead;the group,I realized,was a family.And it was a family I knew,the family of a friend I had long lost touch with.We had had a falling-out（注：falling-out：不和，吵架。） several years ago.Now here she was,her arm tucked（注：tuck：把……藏到……下面。） into her older sister's,walking toward me.I looked,and I looked away.
Did she see me? I don't know.If I had stopped,and said hello,we might have had a conversation.One of those reticent Seattle conversations like baked Alaska,warm on the surface,frozen on the inside,（注：reticent：（言辞等）有保留的，未尽意的；baked Alaska：一种甜品，外面是研的面皮，里面是松糕与冰淇淋。）It was much easier to be the happy couple,walking obliviously by,unembarrassed,unconcerned.（注：obliviously：没有觉察到地；unconcerned：不相干的，没有牵连的。） Better,maybe.But hey,then,what's my problem? Can't I even say hi?
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