We have been driving in fog all morning, but the fog is lifting now. The little seaside villages are 1 one by one. "There is my grandmother's house," I say,2 across the bay to a shabby old house.
I am in Nova Scotia on a pilgrimage (朝圣) with Lise, my granddaughter, seeking roots for her, retracing (追溯)3 memory for me. Lise was one of the mobile children,4 from house to house in childhood. She longs for a sense of 5 , and so we have come to Nova Scotia where my husband and I were born and where our ancestors 6for 200 years.
We soon 7 by the house and I tell her what it was like here, the memories8back, swift as the tide (潮水).
Suddenly, I long to walk again in the 9where I was once so glorious a child. It still 10a member of the family, but has not been lived in for a while. We cannot go into the house, but I can still walk11the rooms in memory. Here, my mother 12 in her bedroom window and wrote in her diary. I can still see the enthusiastic family 13 into and out of the house. I could never have enough of being 14 them. However, that was long after those childhood days. Lise 15 attentively as I talk and then says, " So this is where I 16 ; where I belong. "
She has17her roots. To know where I come from is one of the great longings of the human 18. To be rooted is "to have an origin". We need 19 origin. Looking backward, we discover what is unique in us; learn the20 of "I". We must all go home again—in reality or memory.
