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Earlier this week, on the kind of grey and dreary evening that gives London a bad name, I sat down under a cherry tree. I took out a ballpoint pen and a pad of paper, and began to sketch the thin, sinuous branches blowing above me in the bluster, and the clouds of pale pink petals punctuating them. Having sat down feeling low, I got up feeling soothed and calm.
本週早些時候，在那種讓倫敦名聲大跌的灰暗陰沉的夜晚，我坐在一棵櫻花樹下。我拿出一支圓珠筆和一本便籤本，開始描繪在我頭頂上飄動的細長曲折的樹枝，以及點綴其間的淡粉色花瓣雲。雖然坐下時心情低落，但起身時卻感到了寬慰和平靜。
I grew up in this city, and have always loved its frothy, dreamlike cherry blossom. But it took my travelling to Japan last year during the exuberant height of the sakura season — with its blossom-watching hanami parties and its bright pink paper lanterns lighting up the trees at night — for me to really notice the profusion of cherry bloom here in London. And not just notice it, but really do as many in Japan do and savour it.
我在這座城市長大，一直鍾愛這如夢似幻的櫻花。然而，直到去年我赴日本參加那充滿活力的櫻花季節——滿城櫻花下，人們舉行觀花賞櫻派對，夜晚粉紅色的紙燈籠點綴其間——我才真正意識到倫敦這裏的櫻花亦是如此盛放。並非僅僅是注意到這一點，我還像許多日本人那樣，真正地享受並沉醉於這場櫻花盛宴中。
The temptation to riff off the rich symbolism of the sakura seemed too great for the Japanese premier Fumio Kishida to resist on Wednesday, when he announced on a state visit to Washington, DC, that Japan was donating 250 more of its famous somei-yoshino cherry trees to the US capital (after an initial donation in 1912). And yet the symbolism seemed a little off. “I am confident that the cherry-blossom-like bond of the Japan-US alliance will continue to grow even thicker and stronger here, in the Indo-Pacific, and in all corners of the world,” Kishida said on the White House’s South Lawn.
週三，當日本首相岸田文雄在華盛頓特區的國事訪問中宣佈，繼1912年首次捐贈後，日本將再捐贈250棵著名的染井吉野櫻花樹給美國首都時，他似乎無法抗拒借櫻花的豐富象徵進行發揮的誘惑。然而，這樣的象徵意義看起來有些不合時宜。岸田在白宮南草坪上表示：「我堅信，在這裏、在印太地區乃至世界各個角落，日美同盟的櫻花般的紐帶將日益增強和深化。」
His speechwriters might have given their similes a little more thought: a cherry-blossom-like bond hardly evokes an image of strength and sturdiness; rather one of fragility, delicateness, impermanence.
他的演講稿撰寫人可能需要對他們的比喻進行更深入的思考：像櫻花一樣的紐帶並不能喚起力量和堅韌的形象，反而讓人聯想到脆弱、精緻和短暫。
But outside the context of cherry blossom geopolitics, it is this very thing — the ephemeral nature of the sakura, and the way it mirrors the ephemerality of our existence — that can teach the rest of us a lesson in what we should be directing our attention towards.
然而，除了櫻花地緣政治的背景之外，正是櫻花的短暫性，以及它如何對映我們生命的短暫性，這一點可以給我們其他人一個教訓，指導我們應該將注意力集中在何處。
One of the funny paradoxes of modern life is the way that many people appear to do something akin to savouring by recording every joyful moment (did you really see that sunset if you didn’t post it on social media?), and yet simultaneously seem unable to put down their phones and just be.
現代生活中的一個有趣的悖論是，許多人似乎在透過記錄每一個快樂的時刻來體驗生活（如果你沒有在社群媒體上發佈，你真的看到那個日落嗎？），然而他們同時又似乎無法放下手機，靜下心來享受當下。
Forget happening upon the cherry blossoms; what you really want is a listicle of the most “Instagrammable” cherry blossom spots in London. Even in Tokyo it is virtually impossible to marvel at a tree in a popular viewing spot such as Ueno Park without simultaneously having to marvel at the crowds of young people taking selfies in front of it.
不要再期待偶遇櫻花了；你真正需要的是一份倫敦最「適合拍照」的櫻花景點列表。即使在東京，如上野公園這樣的熱門賞花地，你也幾乎不可能不在欣賞櫻花的同時，對前面自拍的年輕人羣感到驚訝。
Yet there is a difference between “capturing” a moment and savouring it. The former is an attempt to make permanent something inherently fleeting; the latter involves paying attention to a particularly gratifying or pleasurable feeling — luxuriating in it, but then letting it go.
然而，「捕捉」瞬間和「品味」瞬間是有區別的。前者試圖將本質上瞬息即逝的事物永久化；後者則是關注一種特別令人滿足或愉悅的感覺——沉浸其中，然後順其自然地放手。
“You’re tasting an experience and swishing it around in your mind and in your heart as you would swish around in your mouth a fine wine or a piece of chocolate that is delightful,” is how Fred Bryant, professor of social psychology at the Loyola University in Chicago, describes the idea of savouring to me.
「你正在品嚐一種體驗，並在你的腦海和內心中回味它，就像你在嘴裏回味一杯美味的葡萄酒或一塊令人愉悅的巧克力一樣。」這是洛約拉大學(Loyola University)的社會心理學教授弗雷德•布萊恩特(Fred Bryant)對我描述品味的概念。
He has been studying the concept for four decades, having initially been inspired by a Buddhist friend who quoted an old Zen saying to him: “No moment comes twice. Each moment savoured is more precious than a span of jade.”
他對這個概念的研究已經有四十年的歷程，最初的靈感來源於一位佛教朋友，這位朋友向他引述了一句古老的禪語：「沒有哪一刻會重複，每個瞬間的體驗都比一塊玉石更爲珍貴。」
Bryant says learning to savour life’s joys and raptures is just as important a skill as knowing how to cope with the negative when it comes to emotional wellbeing, and even physical wellbeing: research suggests that being able to savour experiences lessens the symptoms of patients suffering from cancer. But while life’s challenges force us to learn the latter, Bryant tells me, savouring is something that we often have to make the choice to learn.
布萊恩特表示，學會品味生活中的快樂和狂喜與學會應對負面情緒一樣重要，這對情緒甚至身體健康都至關重要：研究表明，能夠品味經歷可以減輕癌症患者的症狀。布萊恩特告訴我，雖然生活的挑戰促使我們學習如何應對，但品味生活往往是我們需要主動選擇去學習的。
This isn’t just about bringing attention to pleasurable or happy moments and ignoring or avoiding the difficult ones, though. There is a kind of beauty and intensity to melancholy and heartache that can be savoured in a way that can bring richness even if it does not bring unbridled joy. Indeed, a central part of the symbolism of the sakura is the way it symbolises the cycle of life and death: budding, blooming, and then the final fall.
這不僅僅是關注愉悅或歡樂的時刻而忽略或避開困難的時刻。在憂鬱和心痛中存在一種美麗和強烈，它可以以一種帶來豐富體驗的方式被品味，儘管這並不意味著無限的快樂。實際上，櫻花的象徵意義的核心之一就是其象徵生與死的循環：從萌芽到盛開，再到最終的凋零。
Many of us seem to have become uncomfortable with death and the impermanent. We try to freeze time by “capturing” moments on our phones, injecting our faces with Botox and filler, or taking 100 pills a day in the hope of “reverse-ageing” and living forever.
我們中的許多人似乎對死亡和無常感到不安。我們試圖透過在手機上「捕捉」瞬間，給臉部注射肉毒桿菌和填充劑，或者每天服用100顆藥丸，以期「逆轉衰老」並實現永生。
In so doing, we might forget to notice that we are living. I love this haiku from the 18th-century Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa: “What a strange thing! / to be alive / beneath cherry blossoms.”
在此過程中，我們可能會忘記自己正在生活。我特別喜歡18世紀日本詩人小林一茶(Kobayashi Issa)的這首俳句：「何等奇妙的事情！/ 活在 / 櫻花之下。」