“微公寓”，窮人生活的詩意說法

My husband and I share a 492-square-foot apartment in Cambridge, Mass. We inhabit a “micro apartment,” or what is sometimes called a tiny house. This label is usually proudly applied to dwellings under 500 square feet, according to Wikipedia. We are unwittingly on a very small bandwagon, part of a growing international movement.

我和丈夫住在馬薩諸塞州坎布里奇一套面積為492平方英尺的公寓里。我們住的是“微公寓”——有時又被稱作微型房子。按照維基百科的說法，面積低于500平方英尺(約46.5平米)的居所通常會被光榮地貼上這一標簽。我們不知不覺置身其中的這波小小潮流，是一場日益壯大的國際運動的一部分。

But deep inside the expensive custom closets and under the New Age Murphy beds, the pro-petite propaganda has hidden some unseemly truths about how the other half lives. No one writes about the little white lies that help sell this new, very small American dream.

但在昂貴的定制衣櫥深處和New Age墨菲床之下，提倡小巧化的宣傳者藏起了關于你的另一半如何生活的某些不太體面的真相。沒人在文中提及幫助銷售這種新式微型美國夢的善意小謊言。

Here, on the inside, we have found small not so beautiful after all. Like the silent majority of other middling or poor urban dwellers in expensive cities, we are residents of tiny homes not by design, but because it is all our money can rent.

我們內心里明白，“小”根本就沒有那么“美”。我們和其他中產人士或貧窮的城區(qū)居民一樣，在生活成本高昂的城市中是沉默的大多數，我們住進小房子并非有意為之，而是因為我們的錢只夠租這樣的房子。

Tiny houses are booming. The movement, whose origins fans often link in spirit all the way to Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond, became increasingly popular after the 2008 housing crash. Living small has come to signal environmental mindfulness and restrained consumerism.

微型房子方興未艾。這場運動在2008年房地產市場崩盤后日漸流行——其擁躉經常在想象中將其起源一直追溯至瓦爾登湖的梭羅小木屋。住小房子開始成為環(huán)保覺醒和克制式消費主義的標志。

A tiny home is a state of mind, if not a religion. It is in vogue, and it is in Dwell. The tiny house pairs well with other contemporary cultural currents. It is cut from the same cloth as the Marie Kondo craze of 2014, and suits this year’s hygge, too. (The recently imported cult of hygge-ness — or coziness, from Denmark — often entails the burning of candles, wearing of chunky sweaters and a pursuit of togetherness facilitated by small spaces.) Micro living plugs into the age of Apple minimalism, too. In real estate listings, “cozy” is no longer an unconvincing euphemism, but a coveted catchphrase.

小房子即便不是一種宗教，也代表著一種心緒。它很流行，還登上了《Dwell》雜志。它跟其他當代文化潮流頗為相配。它與2014年的近藤麻理惠(Marie Kondo)熱潮如出一轍，與今年的舒適風(hygge)也很搭調。(最近從丹麥舶來的舒適風，常常涉及點蠟燭、穿蓬松的毛衣，以及追尋因為置身于小空間之中而更加易于實現的親密。)“微居住”還和蘋果(Apple)的極簡主義時代相聯通。在房產信息中，“舒適”不再是一個不具說服力的委婉語，而是一個令人垂涎的流行詞。

Our apartment in Cambridge was built in 1961, part of an earlier wave of utopian interest in tiny affordable housing. Our space occupies most of the lower third of a two-unit, three-story building. There is a contiguous row of nine such pairings — pint-size below, family-size above — on our street. The original developer’s vision was that income from renting the lower units could help cover the mortgage for the owners’ homes above.

我們在坎布里奇的公寓建于1961年，是早前的烏托邦浪潮在微型廉價住房領域留下的印記之一。在一棟分為兩個單元的三層建筑中，我們的居所占據了一層的大部分空間。我們那條街上，排成一排的一連九棟建筑都是這樣的組合式房屋——下方是小單元，上方則為適合全家人居住的單元。開發(fā)商當初的設想是：房主可以用下方單元的租金收入來支付上方房屋的部分抵押貸款。

The most striking feature of our small lives is the unavoidable, domineering presence of the plastic laundry hamper originally bought from Target in 2007. Embarrassing, ordinary objects like the hamper are empowered in small spaces; they become tyrants. In a larger home, this perfectly functional item might recede quietly into a closet or laundry room.

我們的微生活最大的特點，就是2007年購自塔吉特(Target)的塑料洗衣籃那不容忽視的霸氣存在感。洗衣籃之類尷尬的尋常物件，在小空間里顯得格外強大;它們簡直成了暴君。在大一些的房子里，這種極為實用的物品或許會悄悄隱退到壁櫥或洗衣房里。

Our unattractive $10 centerpiece occupies approximately 0.4 percent of our home’s surface area, but visually, it seems much larger. In an otherwise horizontal bedroom landscape (a queen-size mattress on the floor), the hamper looms high and white above the rest of the room. It often reminds me of the Capitol in Lincoln, Neb. — a piece of monumental architecture designed to dominate the prairie, to force man’s will over nature.

我們花10美元買來的這件毫無吸引力的核心擺設，占據了我們家表面積的0.4%，但就視覺效果而言，它似乎要大得多。在原本應該橫向延展的臥室景觀中(地板上擺著大號床墊)，洗衣籃赫然高踞于房間內其他所有一切上方。它常常讓我想起林肯市的內布拉斯加州議會大廈——一棟旨在稱霸草原，把人類的意志強加于自然之上的紀念碑式建筑。

Glossy photo spreads on popular blogs like Tiny House Swoon make the small life look disproportionately good. Small houses have spawned a decent-size media subindustry. Browse Amazon for helpful tomes such as “Tiny House Living: Ideas for Building and Living Well in Less than 400 Square Feet” and “The How To Guide to Building a Tiny House.” The big screen features small houses. You may try documentaries like “Tiny: A Story About Living Small” or “Small Is Beautiful: A Tiny House Documentary.” Or “Tiny House, Big Living,” the small-screen series, which is in its fifth season on HGTV.

通過“小房子大驚喜”(Tiny House Swoon)等廣受歡迎的博客流傳開來的那些漂亮照片，讓微生活顯出了不合情理的好。小房子已經為媒體業(yè)催生出了一個規(guī)模不可小覷的子行業(yè)。在亞馬遜(Amazon)網站可以看到實用的大部頭著作，比如《棲居于小屋：建造不足400平方英尺的小房子、過上幸福生活的創(chuàng)意》(Tiny House Living: Ideas for Building and Living Well in Less than 400 Square Feet)和《小房子建造指南》(The How To Guide to Building a Tiny House)。小房子還上了大銀幕。你或許可以看看《微?。阂粋€關于微生活的故事》(Tiny: A Story About Living Small)或《小即是美：一部關于小房子的紀錄片》等紀錄片?；蛘呖纯础缎》孔哟笊睢?Tiny House, Big Living)，HGTV的這個電視節(jié)目已經播到了第五季。

Tickets for the Tiny House Conference (“tiny houses, big conference”) in Portland, Ore., in April cost $349. The event featured inspirational talks like “Downsize Your Space and Life” and “Future of the Movement.” In Charlotte, N.C., you can hire a tiny house life coach to help with your transition.

4月份，俄勒岡州波特蘭市舉行了一個小房子大會(Tiny House Conference，會議主題是“小房子，大會議”)，門票是349美元。會上有一些鼓舞人心的話題，比如，“縮小你的空間和生活”，“這場運動的未來”。在南卡羅來納州的夏洛特市，你可以雇一名小房子生活教練幫你過渡。

There have been some skeptics. In December 2013, The Atlantic ran an article headlined “The Health Risks of Small Apartments.” The results the magazine reported were inconclusive. Small spaces may pose psychological risks to some populations, but not to others. Some of the experts interviewed by The Atlantic argued that age might matter. Micro apartments could be good for young people, like my husband and me.

也有人對此表示質疑。2013年12月，《大西洋》月刊(The Atlantic)刊登了一篇文章，標題是《小公寓的健康風險》(The Health Risks of Small Apartments)。該雜志報告的結果沒有定論。小房子可能對某些人具有心理風險，但對其他人不會。《大西洋》采訪的一些專家認為，年齡可能是一個影響因素。對于我和丈夫這樣的年輕人來說，小房子可能是有益的。

Life in our tiny home is characterized above all by shabbiness. Like the apartment’s pervasive, undomesticateable dust bunnies, the threadbare feeling grows and grows simply because it already exists.

我們在小房子里的生活最大的特點是破舊。和公寓里無處不在、難以制服的灰塵球一樣，破舊的感覺會不斷增強，而這只是因為它已經存在了。

No one warns you that everything is more concentrated in a tiny house, that the natural life cycle of objects accelerates.

沒人提醒你，在小房子里，一切都更集中，物品的自然壽命周期也隨之縮短。

Our things are aging faster than they did in their previous homes. We sit on our lone couch more hours a day than in any previous dwelling. The cushions are fading, the springs sagging, the corners fraying. Our rug is balding along our daily paths, starkly revealing repetitive routines: back and forth to the coffee machine, to the couch, to the sink, to the couch. The denudations look like cow paths cut through sage brush — invasive affronts on the landscape. Everything in our tiny house is worked over more, used harder.

我們的東西比在之前的家里老化得更快。我們每天坐在那張孤零零的沙發(fā)上的時間，比在以前任何住所都多。墊子在褪色，彈簧失去彈性，邊角開始磨損。地毯上，我們每天行走的路徑被磨得光禿禿的，赤裸裸地揭示出日復一日的例行公事：在咖啡機、沙發(fā)、水槽、沙發(fā)之間往返。這些斑駁的痕跡看上去像是母牛穿過鼠尾草叢的路徑——是對景觀的肆意侵犯。在我們的小房子里，一切物品都被用得更廢、用得更狠。

Here, even smells take up space. We once made a meal that called for caramelizing three pounds of onions. For hours the onions melted in their pan. Technically they were taking up less and less space, but somehow they intruded more. In a tiny house, the smell of slowly sweated onions is an inescapable, cloyingly rich aroma; a scent to drive men — and women — mad.

在這里，甚至連氣味也會占據空間。我們曾經做過一種菜，要給三磅洋蔥外面炒上焦糖。洋蔥在鍋里煮了幾個小時，都快融化了。從技術角度來說，它們占用的空間越來越小，但是不知怎么反而侵占了更多空間。在一棟小房子里，燜煮洋蔥的氣味是揮之不去的，這是一種令人生厭的濃郁芳香;一種男人和女人聞了都會生氣的味道。

The eau de onion spread to everything. It clung especially to the moist bathroom towels, and to the laundry drying in the bedroom. We were never clean again. Fresh from the shower, we immediately smelled of onions — of tiny house. For weeks, smelling like old onions became one of our micro lives’ certainties. The scent’s preferred repository, I eventually learned, was my New Age, polyester sports bra.

到處都是“洋蔥香水”的氣息，特別是在濕潤的浴室毛巾上，還有臥室里正被烘干的衣服上。我們再也干凈不起來了，剛淋浴完，馬上就會被沾染上小小房子里的洋蔥味道。幾個星期之內，在我們微小的生活里，聞起來像一堆老蔥頭成了免不了的事。我最終發(fā)現，噴香水的最佳位置就是在我的New Age牌聚酯纖維運動文胸上。

“It smells like onion,” my husband had certified weeks later. “That doesn’t seem like a good thing to wear.” I said, “I can’t not wear it.” And that was true. I did wear it, but the bra’s coolly advertised moisture-wicking technology seemed designed to activate the old onions. I carried the smell with me deep into the city. You can never really leave a tiny house; it goes with you everywhere.

“它有股洋蔥味兒，”丈夫已經言之鑿鑿地說了幾個星期。“穿這件似乎不好。”我說，“我不能穿它”。這是真的。我還是穿了，但是胸罩廣告上宣傳的那種非常酷的吸濕技術，似乎是為了用來激發(fā)老洋蔥的味道。我就這樣帶著這股味道走進了市區(qū)。你永遠無法擺脫一棟小房子;它會隨身緊跟著你。

For generations, writers have warned about romanticizing the lives of the poor. Beware the nostalgie de la boue. Small can be a bad fit.

多年來，各種文章都在警告，不要把窮人的生活浪漫化。當心那懷舊的沼澤。“小”可能并不適合你。

So we daydream big. Dreams of unfashionable, politically incorrect, old American aspirations that our generation isn’t supposed to believe in anymore. Dreams of design features so vast that they sound like foreign countries. I dream of kitchen islands. I dream outside this box.

所以我們都有對“大”的白日夢。這樣的夢不時尚、政治不正確，是老一代美國人的渴望，我們這一代人根本就不應該相信。那些設計的夢想實在太過宏大，聽起來簡直像是在外國。我還是夢想有島式廚房。我夢想能跳出這個盒子。