晨读英语美文100篇 Passage 50 Snow and the Passage of Time
 音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.86]Passage 50 Snow and the Passage of Time[00:05.78]Any snowfall which brings traffic to a standstill [00:10.38]and closes schools takes me back to one particular storm in my youth on the shores of Lake Area. [00:18.15]On that day, schools and stores were closed because of the weather. [00:22.96]What resonates for me is a six-block walk I took with my father from our house to the post office. [00:31.72]He bought me stamps for my recently started stamp collection. [00:36.85]I already had a wild assortment of cancelled stamps from around the world. [00:42.65]He brought me brand-new stamps. [00:45.50]I can retrace the route in my mind, walking on snow-covered sidewalks and streets. [00:52.40]It was unusual to be going for a walk with my father on a weekday and so close to home. [01:00.27]In the following years, I never talked about that walk with him, [01:05.42]I never even thought about it until it appeared to me about a decade ago. [01:11.54]A winter memory now returned to the forefront. [01:15.80]The elderly are said to be in the winter of their lives, [01:20.40]and winter is synonymous with the end of life. [01:24.89]That does not make the winter the Grim Reaper; rather, [01:30.05]it is a time of reflection in those for whom childhood is long gone. [01:36.38]My father died in the summer of 1997. [01:40.97]For me, his final months resembled the patterns of settling in for winter, [01:47.76]a turning inward and slowing down. [01:51.26]In the end, his breath grew shallower until there was just the quiet. [01:58.04]There are emotional powers that accompany the season, [02:02.20]a blanket of white ties the landscape into a continuous and undulating hall. [02:08.87]The curve of hillsides in the foundations of houses all is connected. [02:14.53]The season keeps us indoors. [02:17.26]Our thoughts and feelings turn inward. [02:20.43]I'm visiting Southern California as I write this, [02:24.95]a place where winter expresses itself as rain. [02:28.89]It would be easy to live in a climate where there are no freezing temperatures snow, [02:35.89]but I would still define the shape of the year by winter [02:40.27]as I knew it from my childhood. |
