一堆牛粪给我的启示_大学英语阅读_大学英语-查字典英语网

一堆牛粪给我的启示

8月3日，曾是堆满鲜花、笑容洋溢的庆祝日——我的结婚纪念日。自婚姻解体后，它又成了我的伤心日——直到我看到了一堆牛粪的那天。

It is the day formerly known as my anniversary, and I am staring at the biggest pile of manure I have ever seen.

I work on a farm, but not this one. This farm, with its notably large pile of poop,[2] is a dairy farm. The farm where I work is a small pick-your-own flower-and-vegetable farm owned by my cousins.

At the small farm where I work, brides and their friends come to pick flowers for their weddings. Husbands, young and old, collect big bunches of sunflowers for their wives on anniversaries. And one Saturday a family of five—parents and grown children—asked me to take their picture along with the bright bouquet[3] they had picked.

“Our parents have been married 25 years today!” their daughter proudly told me.

On a rainy day in August eight years ago, my family and I visited this same small farm to pick buckets[4] full of flowers for my wedding. Two days later, I was married and, with that, what had been just another day on the calendar turned into a special one, to be celebrated with even more flowers and toasts as long we both should live.

But five years later, when my marriage ended, I wasn’t sure what to do with the day formerly known as my anniversary. Most notable days in the calendar stay that way. Our birthdays are determined upon arrival. In the United States, we eat a lot on the fourth Thursday in November, and we watch fire in the sky on the fourth day of July[5] – none of that is likely to change anytime soon.