Big Lessons,Learned on a Small Scale

小藝術，大生活

By Kate Chambers

火柴盒變成了衣柜，茶包變成了枕頭，塑料瓶蓋子變成了桌面，彩色衣扣變成了桌子上五顏六色的小碟子……經(jīng)過精心的雕琢和打造，生活中廢棄的物品成為了洋娃娃屋里的珍寶。我從母親身上繼承到的，不僅是對袖珍洋娃娃屋的喜愛之情，更是對生活的別樣態(tài)度。

My mother is taking a tour of the new house via Skype.1. via: 通過，憑借；Skype: 一款即時通訊軟件，具有視頻聊天等功能。I tilt the laptop so she can see where she’s going, pleased that our Internet connection in Zimbabwe is holding.2. tilt: 傾斜；Zimbabwe: 津巴布韋，非洲南部的國家。

“This is the living room,” I say. Then I tell my daughter:“Show Grandma the bed for the mummy and the daddy.”

From a continent away, Grandma oohs and aahs3. ooh and aah: 驚嘆，贊嘆。her approval.

“Doesn’t that bedsheet look like that handkerchief4. handkerchief: 手帕，手絹。I sent you a while back?” she asks.

“It is your handkerchief,” I say. I take apart the bed—a small children’s book made of cloth splayed out along its spine—and hold it up to the lens so Mum can see how her handkerchief

tucks perfectly underneath.5. 我把床拆開——把一本布 做的小童書沿著書脊打開——然后舉起來湊近攝像頭，讓媽媽看清她的手帕是怎樣好好地塞到下面的。splay:向外張開；spine: 書脊；lens: 攝像頭，鏡頭；tuck: 把……塞入。

Mum had a dollhouse, too. As a child growing up in eastern England, I was fascinated by her stories of her“house in a cookie tin6. tin: （儲存東西用的）金屬盒。.”

My grandmother, a feisty single mother who biked to work at a textile factory every day,7. feisty: 頑強自信的；textile factory: 紡織廠。did not have enough money to buy my mother a real dollhouse. So Mum made do, laboring over her square cookie tin for years.8. make do: 將就，湊合；labor: 辛勤工作，苦干；square: 正方形的，四方形的。She stuck cutouts on the shiny walls; two beds from a catalog; tin cans of jam and bags of flour to make sure the dolls’ pantry was overflowing, even if her own mother’s wasn’t.9. 她在锃亮的墻壁上貼上剪紙；用產(chǎn)品宣傳冊做了兩張床；在洋娃娃屋的食品柜里塞滿了果醬罐和面粉袋，讓柜里滿滿當當?shù)?，即使在現(xiàn)實生活中她自己的母親做不到這一點。stick:粘貼；cutout: 紙剪的圖形；catalog: 產(chǎn)品目錄冊；pantry: 食品儲藏室。

My mother passed her love of life in miniature10. miniature: 微型復制品，微小模型。on to me very early. At age five,I made chests of drawers11. chest of drawers: 衣柜，五斗櫥。for my dollhouse bedroom from matchboxes glued together. Unused teabags swathed12. swathe: 用布裹，用布纏。in cotton cloth became pillows. A rectangle of foam, painted brown and rolled tightly, was an inedible Swiss roll.13. rectangle: 長方形，矩形；foam: 泡沫，泡沫材料；roll: 卷起來，使成筒狀；inedible: 不可食用的；Swiss roll: 瑞士卷。

Unlike my mother, I was given some ready-made doll furniture and accessories14. accessory: 配件，附屬品。. My favorites were the toffee-colored sofa and armchairs, and the red soda bottle complete with tiny trapped bubbles.15. toffee-colored: 太妃糖色的；armchair: 扶手椅；trapped: 被包住的，被困住的。

But much of my joy came from what I could cobble together with bits and pieces salvaged from the trash.16. cobble... together: （匆忙而草率地）拼湊；salvage:（從事故或糟糕情形中）搶救出（某物）。My mother encouraged me, handing me thin slivers17. sliver: 小塊，薄片。of soap for the dollhouse bathroom and always, always responding to my call: “Come see what I’ve made for my dollhouse!”

I spent hours writing a book with the unoriginal but certainly accurate title How to Make Dolls’ House Furniture. Each chapter dealt with a different room. The book was lost in a household move. But the satisfying feeling of filling up blank pages with my own ideas stayed with me, pushing me into a career centered on words and the trimming18. trimming: 修整。, rearranging, and counting of them.

My daughter turned three recently, and last month I put a sturdy empty cardboard box, about the size of a tea tray,19. sturdy:（物件）結實的，堅實的；cardboard box: 紙板盒，紙箱；tea tray: 茶盤，（放茶杯的）托盤。in Cassia’s bedroom. We placed a plastic doily on the bottom of the box to make a carpet and balanced the lid from a plastic jar on top of an egg cup for a table.20. 我們用塑料花紋墊子當做地毯放在盒子底部，又把塑料瓶蓋子穩(wěn)穩(wěn)地放在蛋杯頂部作為桌子。doily: （鏤空花紋紙或布做的）網(wǎng)眼墊，裝飾墊；egg cup:（吃蛋時用的）蛋杯。

I scoured21. scour: （徹底地）搜尋，翻找。the shops for dollhouse furniture. But an afternoon’s searching yielded only a pink plastic toilet and sink.22. yield: 產(chǎn)生，得出（結果、答案或資料等）；sink: 洗臉盆。It doesn’t matter, I told myself. It’s not as if I don’t know how to furnish a dollhouse.

I showed Cassia how to make plates for her table from colored buttons. Enthralled, she collected black stones and called them avocados.23. enthrall: 迷?。橙耍梗橙耍┲?；avocado: 鱷梨，牛油果。A plate of lumpy white “potatoes” soon appeared,fashioned from modeling paste.24. lumpy: 布滿團塊的；fashion:（用手或幾件工具）使成形，制作；modeling paste: 塑形膏。

A plug adapter25. plug adapter: 轉換插頭，即可將各國不同電源插頭轉換成某一國家電源插頭的插座。is a perfect fridge. Acorns become oranges,stacked in a corner “in case the dolls get hungry.”26. acorn: 橡實，橡子；stack: 整齊地堆起，摞起。

Now, when I find things lying about the house, I’ve learned to ask once again: “What can this be made into for the dollhouse?”

As I watch my child discover the fun of creating a miniature home, I think back to my mother and her cookie-tin house. What she gave me was much more than a fascination with things tiny:It was the ability to view things from a new perspective, to put oneself in another person’s (tiny) shoes27. put oneself in one’s shoes: 設身處地為他人著想。, to solve problems with whatever is at hand.

This is what my mother taught me, and what her mother taught her. Now it’s my turn.

Cassia has found that the bridal veil from a bigger doll can become a mosquito net.28. bridal veil: 新娘披紗，新娘面紗；mosquito net: 蚊帳。A pile of fresh green clover is the dolls’spinach, waiting to be chopped up for dinner.29. clover: 三葉草；spinach: 菠菜；chop: up: 切碎，剁碎。

Apart from saving empty spools and bits of dangly earrings,my job is mostly to marvel.30. spool:（線、電線等的）卷軸，線軸；dangly: 懸擺的，擺晃的；marvel: （尤指對某人的行為）感到驚訝，欽佩。And always, always to respond to the cry: “Come see what I’ve made for my dollhouse!”