Locquirec is maritime and temperate.
洛基雷克是海洋性温带气候。
The coast is like Cornwall on the opposite side of the Channel: rocky, wild, rainy.
那里的海岸就像英吉利海峡对岸的康沃尔:有很多岩石、狂野、多雨。
It can be sunny and glorious in the summer if you are lucky, but it never gets very hot.
如果你幸运的话,或许会遇到阳光明媚的夏天,但那里永远不会太热。
If the thermometer reads more than 22C, Bretons become a little affronted and go around complaining, “Ouf! C’est trop chaud!”
如果温度超过22摄氏度,布列塔尼人就会觉得很不舒服,到处抱怨:“哇!太糟糕了!”
Sea temperatures in July and August are about 17 or 18C. Refreshing, shall we say.
7月和8月的海水温度大约是17或18摄氏度。可以说是非常清爽提神的。
Over several summers I got used to it and swam every day, even when it was grey and windy and pouring with rain.
在几个夏天里,我习惯了它,每天都会去游泳,哪怕在天气阴沉、狂风大作、下着倾盆大雨的时候也一样。
In the winter I wore my wetsuit and neoprene gloves and boots and a balaclava.
冬天,我会穿着潜水服和氯丁橡胶手套和靴子,戴着巴拉克拉法帽。
When I arrived, alone, in mid-October last year, the water temperature was about 15C.
去年10月中旬,我一个人到那里时,水温大约是15摄氏度。
The sea is always a couple of months behind the seasons, it takes longer to cool down in the autumn and longer to warm up again in spring.
海洋的温度变化总是比季节更替要滞后一些,秋天降温需要更长时间,春季变暖也需要更久。
I wondered if it would be too cold for me, but hauling myself into the superhero suit and peeling it off again was a major operation, so I decided to try to swim without it.
我想知道海水会不会太冷,但费劲穿上超人泳衣再把它脱下可是件大工程,所以我决定不穿泳衣去游泳。
It took me several minutes to immerse myself. Inching.
我用了几分钟才完全把自己浸入水中。一点一点慢慢来。
It was not a question of gathering my resolve to punch through my fear.
这无关乎下定决心直面恐惧。
I knew the cold would be initially uncomfortable, but I also knew that the discomfort would pass.
我知道寒冷一开始会让人不舒服,但我也知道这种不舒服总会过去的。
So I waited a little for the initial sharpness of the temperature to be blunted.
所以,我等了一会儿,等着自己适应水温。
I wanted to swim; eventually, I swam.
我想游泳了;最终,我游了起来。
I yelped at first with shock, but also with delight.
一开始,我震惊地大叫,不过也是高兴地大叫。
Smoother and wider with each stroke, until my shoulders relaxed and I dipped my chin to kiss the surface and began to glide.
每一次划水都变得更顺滑、更宽广,直到我的肩膀放松下来,我低着下巴亲吻水面,开始了滑行。
The next day, it was easier to get in and the next day even easier. I felt clean and washed and electric.
第二天,入水变得更容易了,第三天又容易了一些。我感觉很干净,很清爽,很兴奋。
On the fourth day, it was stormy, and seahorses galloped in the bay. I was surprised to be undeterred.
第四天,天下着暴风雨,海马在海湾里疾驰。让我惊讶的是,我并没有被吓倒。
The waves slapped my head and sloshed between the harbour walls, sucking and pulling like a washing machine.
海浪拍打着我的头,在海湾的墙壁之间颠簸,像洗衣机一样推拉着我。
The sea swelled and troughed, goggling my vision with seawater one moment, lifting me up into the world again the next.
海浪汹涌起伏,一会儿海水吞噬了我的视线,一会儿又把我浮了起来。
I felt absorbed by its energy. It was exhilarating.
我被它的能量吸引住了。太振奋了。
I found myself singing an INXS song into the wind at the top of my voice (I had watched a documentary about Michael Hutchence on Netflix the night before).
我发现自己高声唱着INXS的歌曲(前一天晚上我在Netflix上看了一部关于迈克尔·哈钦斯的纪录片)。
“Mystify! MYSTIFY ME!”
“神秘感!迷惑我吧!”
Before I realised I was crazily high on endorphins. I didn’t want to stop.
在我意识到之前,我的内啡肽含量高到离谱。
I had to tell myself to get out of the water before I was swept up and away.
在我被卷走之前,我告诉自己得上岸了。
“What happens to me when I swim in cold water?”
“我在冷水中游泳时,到底发生了什么?”
I asked Mike Tipton, professor of human and applied physiology at the extreme environments laboratory at the University of Portsmouth.
我请教了朴茨茅斯大学极端环境实验室的人类和应用生理学教授迈克·蒂普顿。
Yes, I felt refreshed and energised, but I wanted to understand a little of the physiology behind my reactions.
是的,我感到神清气爽,精力充沛,但我想知道一些我的反应背后的生理学原理。
“We are tropical animals,” Tipton said. Homo sapiens evolved in equatorial plains, he told me.
“我们是热带动物,”蒂普顿说。他告诉我,智人是在赤道平原上进化的。
We are comfortable in an ambient air temperature of about 28C.
我们在28摄氏度左右的环境空气中会觉得很舒服。
That’s why, in cool climes, we were quick to build houses and wear clothes.
所以在凉爽的气候下,我们盖房子、穿衣服都很快。
Plunging into cold water is a considerable shock and the body goes into action: the “fight or flight” response makes you breathe rapidly to take in oxygen, your heart beats faster.
跳入冰冷的水中会震惊到身体,它开启了“要么战斗要么逃跑”的反应,这会让你呼吸加速,快速摄氧,心跳也会加速。
In these moments, I told him, my skin goes numb, my chest feels like a radiator and my head fizzes with light.
我告诉他,这时候我的皮肤也会麻木,我的胸膛就像暖气片一样,脑袋里也会放光。
“The body is responding with all the stress hormones,” Tipton said.
蒂普顿说:“身体对所有的压力荷尔蒙都会作出反应。”
“You’ll see an increase in adrenaline and cortisol, you’ll see changes in all of the fight-or-flight biochemical and hormonal responses.
“你会看到肾上腺素和皮质醇增加,你会看到所有战斗或逃跑的生化和荷尔蒙反应变化。
It’s raising your heart rate, your ventilation.
它加快了你的心率,增加了你的通气量。
That’s the thing that makes people say: ‘I feel alive, I feel alert, it wakes me up for the rest of the day.’”
这会让人们觉得:‘我感觉自己充满活力,我很警觉,我清醒地开启了一天。’”
Broken hearts heal slowly; hope is terribly persistent.
破碎的心慢慢愈合;希望非常持久。
I cried every day, sometimes soft drippy tears, other times wracking sobs.
我每天都在哭,有时会流泪,有时会抽泣。
My mood was fragile, and cracked at any little thing.
我的情绪很脆弱,任何小事都会让我崩溃。
I dropped one of our blue-rimmed wine glasses on the stone floor and raged as I bent to sweep up the shards.
我不小心把一个蓝边酒杯掉到了石头地板上,弯腰清理碎片时勃然大怒。
I wrote in my journal: … a feeling of utter desolation sweeps over me like a searchlight.
我在日记中写道:…一种完全荒凉的感觉像探照灯一样掠过我的全身。
Pain, disappointment sadness; all normal, all part of being human, of living. But I am tired.
痛苦,失望,悲伤;这一切都很正常,都是作为人的一部分,都是生活的一部分。可我累了。
I procrastinate, get nothing done, wipe something, wash something. Lassitude creeps. I am dogged by broken things.
我拖拖拉拉,什么都不做,擦东西,洗东西。疲倦令人毛骨悚然。我沉浸在破碎的东西里。
A cabinet door in the kitchen has come off its hinges, the electric blender won’t whirr, a piece of flashing has come loose on the roof.
厨房的一扇柜门从铰链上掉了下来,电动搅拌机不响了,屋顶上有块闪光灯松动了。
It bangs in the wind all night. Wide awake at four in the morning with a glass of whisky-hemlock.
它整晚都在风中晃荡。凌晨4点清醒了,喝上一杯威士忌--铁杉。
Unslept sleep, ragged dreams. Wake up to another bloody day and swim.
彻夜难眠,乱七八糟的梦境。醒来,又是绝望的一天,去游泳吧。
At the beginning of November I tested the sea temperature with my cooking thermometer and it read 12.3C.
11月初,我用烹饪温度计测试了海温,结果显示是12.3摄氏度。
I put on my neoprene gloves. But I noticed, too, that I now walked into the water easily, without hesitation.
我戴上了氯丁橡胶手套。但我也注意到,现在我会毫不犹豫地走进水里。
Studies have shown that getting used to cold water is not so much a mental adaptation as a physical one.
研究表明,习惯冷水与其说是一种心理适应,不如说是一种身体适应。
The effects of what scientists call “cold water shock” – the initial gasping and the rapid increase in heart rate – are reduced with each exposure.
我接触冷水越来越多,科学家们所说的“冷水休克”--最初的喘息和心率的快速增加--的影响越来越小。
And your body “remembers” this adapted response.
你的身体会“记住”这种适应的反应。
Even if you don’t go into cold water for weeks or months, when you do go back in, it’s not as shocking as the first time.
即使你几周或几个月不进冷水,等你再回到水里时,也不会像第一次那样令人震惊。
People walking along the harbour wall wrapped up in anoraks and scarves would call out to me in the sea: “Vous êtes courageuse!”
穿着风衣、围着围巾的人们沿着港口围墙走来走去,在海里对我大喊:“你真勇敢!”
But swimming in cold water is not a question of willpower or overcoming some mental barrier; it’s not about conquering yourself or the environment.
但在冷水中游泳并不是为了锻炼意志力或克服某些精神障碍;这不是为了征服自己或环境。
Like grief, it is an adjustment to a different circumstance, and like grief, too, the process tends to be more of a natural habituation than a result of conscious thought.
就像悲伤一样,它是对不同环境的调整,也像悲伤一样,这个过程更多的是一种自然的习惯化,而不是有意识思考的结果。
Three years after his death, I still missed Dad, but now his memory made me smile rather than cry.
爸爸去世三年后,我依然很想他,不过现在关于他的回忆会让我微笑而不是哭泣。
As I acclimatised to the cold water, I even began to enjoy the initial tingling jolt of submersion.
适应冷水后,我甚至开始享受最初浸入水中的那种刺痛感。