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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.
本周早些时候，在那种让伦敦名声大跌的灰暗阴沉的夜晚，我坐在一棵樱花树下。我拿出一支圆珠笔和一本便签本，开始描绘在我头顶上飘动的细长曲折的树枝，以及点缀其间的淡粉色花瓣云。虽然坐下时心情低落，但起身时却感到了宽慰和平静。
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.
我在这座城市长大，一直钟爱这如梦似幻的樱花。然而，直到去年我赴日本参加那充满活力的樱花季节——满城樱花下，人们举行观花赏樱派对，夜晚粉红色的纸灯笼点缀其间——我才真正意识到伦敦这里的樱花亦是如此盛放。并非仅仅是注意到这一点，我还像许多日本人那样，真正地享受并沉醉于这场樱花盛宴中。
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.
周三，当日本首相岸田文雄在华盛顿特区的国事访问中宣布，继1912年首次捐赠后，日本将再捐赠250棵著名的染井吉野樱花树给美国首都时，他似乎无法抗拒借樱花的丰富象征进行发挥的诱惑。然而，这样的象征意义看起来有些不合时宜。岸田在白宫南草坪上表示：“我坚信，在这里、在印太地区乃至世界各个角落，日美同盟的樱花般的纽带将日益增强和深化。”
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.
他的演讲稿撰写人可能需要对他们的比喻进行更深入的思考：像樱花一样的纽带并不能唤起力量和坚韧的形象，反而让人联想到脆弱、精致和短暂。
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，除了樱花地缘政治的背景之外，正是樱花的短暂性，以及它如何映射我们生命的短暂性，这一点可以给我们其他人一个教训，指导我们应该将注意力集中在何处。
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.
现代生活中的一个有趣的悖论是，许多人似乎在通过记录每一个快乐的时刻来体验生活（如果你没有在社交媒体上发布，你真的看到那个日落吗？），然而他们同时又似乎无法放下手机，静下心来享受当下。
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.
不要再期待偶遇樱花了；你真正需要的是一份伦敦最“适合拍照”的樱花景点列表。即使在东京，如上野公园这样的热门赏花地，你也几乎不可能不在欣赏樱花的同时，对前面自拍的年轻人群感到惊讶。
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”瞬间和“品味”瞬间是有区别的。前者试图将本质上瞬息即逝的事物永久化；后者则是关注一种特别令人满足或愉悦的感觉——沉浸其中，然后顺其自然地放手。
“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.
“你正在品尝一种体验，并在你的脑海和内心中回味它，就像你在嘴里回味一杯美味的葡萄酒或一块令人愉悦的巧克力一样。”这是洛约拉大学(Loyola University)的社会心理学教授弗雷德•布莱恩特(Fred Bryant)对我描述品味的概念。
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.”
他对这个概念的研究已经有四十年的历程，最初的灵感来源于一位佛教朋友，这位朋友向他引述了一句古老的禅语：“没有哪一刻会重复，每个瞬间的体验都比一块玉石更为珍贵。”
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.
布莱恩特表示，学会品味生活中的快乐和狂喜与学会应对负面情绪一样重要，这对情绪甚至身体健康都至关重要：研究表明，能够品味经历可以减轻癌症患者的症状。布莱恩特告诉我，虽然生活的挑战促使我们学习如何应对，但品味生活往往是我们需要主动选择去学习的。
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.
这不仅仅是关注愉悦或欢乐的时刻而忽略或避开困难的时刻。在忧郁和心痛中存在一种美丽和强烈，它可以以一种带来丰富体验的方式被品味，尽管这并不意味着无限的快乐。实际上，樱花的象征意义的核心之一就是其象征生与死的循环：从萌芽到盛开，再到最终的凋零。
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.
我们中的许多人似乎对死亡和无常感到不安。我们试图通过在手机上“捕捉”瞬间，给脸部注射肉毒杆菌和填充剂，或者每天服用100颗药丸，以期“逆转衰老”并实现永生。
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.”
在此过程中，我们可能会忘记自己正在生活。我特别喜欢18世纪日本诗人小林一茶(Kobayashi Issa)的这首俳句：“何等奇妙的事情！/ 活在 / 樱花之下。”
