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Until last year, when my grandmother died and her apartment was ransacked, her legacy destroyed, my mother and I still clowned around sometimes.
直到去年，我的祖母离世，她的公寓被翻了个底朝天，她的遗物也被毁了，我和母亲有时还会对此开玩笑。
Over the years, as we assimilated, our jokes were more often about the strange habits of Iranians than those of Americans.
多年来，随着我们逐渐融入他乡，我们的笑话更多地是关于伊朗人的奇怪习惯，而不是美国人的。
During the pandemic, I was writing a short story. She gave me details from her childhood.
疫情期间，我正在写一篇短篇小说。母亲给我讲了她童年的零零碎碎。
“We used to pluck our eyebrows and tell people we had a hypothyroid,” she said.
“我们过去常常拔眉毛，告诉别人我们甲状腺功能减退，”她说。
“Just in your eyebrows?” I said, giggling.
“仅仅发生在你的眉毛上?” 我咯咯地笑着说。
“A hypothyroid that makes just the bushy extra parts of your eyebrows fall out and nothing else?”
“甲状腺功能减退，只会让你眉毛浓密的部分脱落，其他什么都不会改变?”
“It made our leg hairs fall out, too,” she said, and I burst out laughing.
“它也会让我们的腿毛脱落，”她说。我不禁大笑起来。
A glandular problem that only affects unwanted hairs. Nothing could be more Iranian. “The grandmothers believed it!” Or they let it go. Or were in on it.
一种只影响多余毛发的腺体问题。没有什么比这更伊朗了。“祖母们对此深信不疑!” 要么就是随它便。要么就是置身其中。
Briefly, as we drank our tea and made fun of our countrywomen, we were in that movable bunker of our migrant days, that sacred space where we laughed at other people for their vanity or their boundaries or their fanned-out plates of dinner meats.
简言之，当我们喝着茶，取笑农村妇女时，我们仿佛置身于移民时期那个可移动的地堡里，在那个神圣空间里，我们嘲笑他人的虚荣，嘲笑他人的界限感，嘲笑摊开的一盘盘肉类晚餐。
“I do think we are dealing with intergenerational trauma,” the therapist told us in our second session.
“我真的觉得我们正在处理代际创伤，”心理治疗师在我们的第二次治疗中告诉我们。
Something more than just a culture gap. It’s true that there have been migrations and abusive men and deep, reverberating pain.
不仅仅是文化差异。也确实有移民，有虐待者，有深刻的、回荡的痛苦。
Once at bedtime, I said something about locking the doors at night and Elena shrieked. “Don’t tell me scary things! Don’t tell me that stuff until I’m 20!”
有一次上床睡觉的时候，我说了些锁了门才能说的私密事，埃琳娜尖叫起来。“不要告诉我可怕的事情! 在我20岁前别跟我说这些!”
Do all mothers frighten the living crap out of their daughters, or am I transmitting something deep rooted and inevitable to her?
是所有的母亲都会把自己的女儿吓得屁滚尿流，还是我在向她传递某种根深蒂固的、不可避免的东西?
My mother, though, insists our problems are entirely about culture and the definition of normal.
然而，我母亲坚持认为，我们的问题完全与文化以及对正常的定义有关。
“In my culture,” she says, “you respect your mother. You don’t make so many walls for her.”
“在我的文化里，”她说，“你尊重你的母亲。你不会为她筑这么多心墙。”
Sometimes she says just what I’m thinking: “Weren’t we close?”
有时她说的话和我想的一样: “我们不是很亲密吗?”
And my stomach drops because I know that one day, I will lose my private space with Elena.
我肝肠寸断，因为我知道总有一天，我会失去和埃琳娜在一起的私人空间。
“Explain to me,” my mother says, “at what age mothers stop being mothers.”
“给我解释一下，”我妈妈说，“妈妈到什么年龄就不再是妈妈了。”
I have no idea; but I know it’s inevitable, that fighting it will mangle my heart.
我不知道;但我知道这是不可避免的，与之抗争会伤透我的心。
I spend hours a day just smelling Elena’s neck.
我每天花几个小时闻埃琳娜的脖子。
At my grandmother’s funeral, I gave my mother a reluctant hug, and she took a hungry sniff of my neck.
在祖母的葬礼上，我勉强地拥抱了一下母亲，而她却狠狠地闻了闻我的脖子。
I felt violated and stunned, but also sad for her. I yanked myself away.
我感到被冒犯了、震惊不已，但也为她感到难过。我猛地挣脱了。
Her need was becoming nightmarish, and I started to think about myself, in two decades, holding too tight to my daughter.
她的需求变得如噩梦般可怕，我开始思考自己的行为，在过去的二十年里，我对女儿抓得太紧了。
