整理衣櫥，以怦然心動為標準

整理衣櫥，以怦然心動為標準

By her own account, Marie Kondo was an unusual child, poring over lifestyle magazines to glean organizing techniques and then stealthily practicing them at home and school, confounding her family and bemusing her teachers.

用近藤麻里繪(Marie Kondo)自己的話說，她打小就與眾不同——研讀生活方式雜志，收集整理技巧，然后悄悄在家和學校實踐它們，令家人和老師們迷惑不解。

As she writes in “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing,” which comes out this month in the United States and is already a best seller in her native Japan and in Europe, she habitually sneaked into her siblings’ rooms to throw away their unused toys and clothes and ducked out of recess to organize her classroom’s bookshelves and mop closet, grumbling about poor storage methodologies and pining for an S-hook.

她的《怦然心動的人生整理魔法》(The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing)在日本和歐洲已是暢銷書，本月在美國出版。她在書中寫道，她經(jīng)常偷偷跑到兄弟姊妹們的房間，扔掉不用的玩具和衣服，課間休息時整理教室書架，打掃壁櫥，抱怨糟糕的存儲方法，渴望得到一個S型鉤。

The contents of one of Ms. Kondo’s own drawers.

近藤自己的抽屜。

Now 30, Ms. Kondo is a celebrity of sorts at home, the subject of a TV movie, with a three-month waiting list for her decluttering services — until recently, that is, because she has stopped taking clients to focus on training others in her methods. Last Friday, I brought her book home to practice them.

如今，30歲的近藤在日本幾乎是個名人，有人根據(jù)她的事跡拍了一部電視電影，預約她的整理服務要等三個月。最近，她不再接新客戶，而是專心傳授整理方法。上周五，我把她的書帶回家開始實踐。

What better moment to drill down and ponder the fretful contents of one’s sock drawer? Global and national news was careering from the merely hysterical to the nonsensical (the Ebola cruise ship incident was just peaking). Closer to home, other anxieties beckoned. But in my apartment on Second Avenue, the world was no larger than my closet, and I was talking to my T-shirts.

這難道不是思考和清理令人煩躁的襪子抽屜的最佳時機嗎?國際新聞和國內(nèi)新聞正從歇斯底里變?yōu)闃O其荒謬(埃博拉游輪事件簡直登峰造極)。回到家里，其他頭疼的事就開始向你招手了。在我位于第二大道的公寓里，我的壁櫥就是整個世界，我正在跟我的T恤說話。

Let me explain. Ms. Kondo’s decluttering theories are unique, and can be reduced to two basic tenets: Discard everything that does not “spark joy,” after thanking the objects that are getting the heave-ho for their service; and do not buy organizing equipment — your home already has all the storage you need.

讓我解釋一下。近藤的整理理論獨一無二，可以簡述為兩個基本原則：感謝那些要退役的東西曾為你服務，然后扔掉所有不能讓你“怦然心動”的東西;不要買整理用具——你家里的存放器具已經(jīng)夠用了。

Obsessive, gently self-mocking and tender toward the life cycle of, say, a pair of socks, Ms. Kondo delivers her tidy manifesto like a kind of Zen nanny, both hortatory and animistic.

近藤帶著對所有物品(哪怕是一雙襪子)生命輪回的迷戀和關切，也帶著一點自嘲，展示自己的整理宣言，像是禪宗的保姆，既是忠告，也帶著萬物有靈色彩。

“Don’t just open up your closet and decide after a cursory glance that everything in it gives you a thrill,” she writes. “You must take each outfit in your hand.”

“不要打開你的壁櫥、匆忙看一眼就認定里面所有的東西都讓你緊張，”她寫道，“你應該把每件東西拿在手上思考。”

“Does it spark joy?” would seem to set the bar awfully high for a T-shirt or a pair of jeans, but it turns out to be a more efficacious sorting mechanism than the old saws: Is it out of style? Have you worn it in the last year? Does it still fit?

“它能讓你怦然心動嗎?”——對T恤或牛仔褲來說，這個標準似乎很高，但結果證明，與傳統(tǒng)衡量方法——比如，它過時了嗎?過去一年中你穿它了嗎?它還合身嗎?——相比，這個分類機制更有效。

Alone in my bedroom, with the contents of both closets strewn over every surface, I fondled stretch velvet pants (don’t judge me) and enough fringed scarves to outfit an army of Stevie Nicks fans, and shed a tear or two for my younger self. (Where did the time go?)

我一個人在臥室里，看著兩個塞得滿滿的壁櫥，愛撫我的天鵝絨彈力褲(不要對我評頭論足)和流蘇圍巾——這些圍巾多得夠給史蒂薇·尼克斯(Stevie Nicks)的粉絲大軍們每人發(fā)一條——為逝去的青春掉了一兩滴眼淚(時間都去哪兒了?)。

“Sparking joy,” I realized, can be a flexible concept: That which is itchy, or too hot, is certainly joyless. So is anything baggy, droopy or with a flared leg.

我意識到，“怦然心動”這個標準比較靈活：穿著發(fā)癢或太熱的衣服肯定不能帶來快樂。所有松松垮垮、沒精打采的衣服和喇叭褲也是如此。

Tidying is a dialogue with oneself, Ms. Kondo writes.

近藤寫道，整理是與自己的對話。

Of course, after 10 or 12 hours of this, you get a bit silly. You forget to thank your discards. (Country music can help. Try George Jones and Lucinda Williams.) By 9 p.m., I had lost Ms. Kondo’s book in the layers of clothing, hangers and shoe boxes. And my glasses, too.

當然，在整理10個或12個小時之后，你會變得有點傻。你會忘記感謝要扔的東西(鄉(xiāng)村音樂有所幫助?？梢栽囋噯讨?middot;瓊斯[George Jones]或露辛達·威廉姆斯[Lucinda Williams]的歌)。到晚上9點，近藤的書已經(jīng)迷失在一層層衣服、衣架和鞋盒中了。我的眼鏡也找不著了。

How to distinguish one black turtleneck from another? Why would anyone buy purple tights? What is joy, anyway?

我為什么要買兩件黑色高領毛衣?它們有區(qū)別嗎?我為什么會買紫色緊身褲?到底什么是快樂?

At 1 a.m., my daughter appeared, raised an eyebrow at the piles still obliterating my bed and offered up her own. But I was ready to fold, the primal act of Ms. Kondo’s method.

凌晨1點，女兒來到我的房間，看著床上的一堆堆東西揚起了眉毛，把她的衣服也拿了過來。但是我要開始折疊了——折疊是近藤方法中最主要的步驟。

You can find YouTube videos of her technique, but it’s not so hard: Fold everything into a long rectangle, then fold that in upon itself to make a smaller rectangle, and then roll that up into a tube, like a sushi roll. Set these upright in your drawers. And pour your heart into it, Ms. Kondo urges: Thank your stuff, it’s been working hard for you.

你能在YouTube上找到她的技巧視頻，其實并不太難：把所有東西都疊成長長的矩形，再把它疊成小一點的矩形，然后卷成一個管，就像壽司卷那樣。把它們豎著放在抽屜里。近藤鼓勵你用心去做：感謝你的物品，因為它們一直在努力為你服務。

“When we take our clothes in our hands and fold them neatly,” she writes, “we are, I believe, transmitting energy, which has a positive effect on our clothes.”

“我們把衣服拿在手中折疊整齊時，”她寫道，“我認為，我們在傳遞能量，給衣服帶來正能量。”

She proposes a similarly agreeable technique for hanging clothing. Hang up anything that looks happier hung up, and arrange like with like, working from left to right, with dark, heavy clothing on the left: “Clothes, like people, can relax more freely when in the company of others who are very similar in type, and therefore organizing them by category helps them feel more comfortable and secure.”

她還提到一個同樣令人愉快的掛衣服技巧。把任何掛起來顯得更快樂的東西掛起來，把同類物品放在一起，從左向右排列，把黑色厚重的衣服放在左邊：“和人一樣，衣服有同類陪伴會更放松、更自由，所以分類整理會讓它們感覺更舒服、更安全。”

Such anthropomorphism and nondualism, so familiar in Japanese culture, as Leonard Koren, a design theorist who has written extensively on Japanese aesthetics, told me recently, was an epiphany to this Westerner. In Japan, a hyper-awareness, even reverence, for objects is a rational response to geography, said Mr. Koren, who spent 10 years there and is the author of “Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers.”

這樣的擬人觀和泛神論在日本文化中十分常見。倫納德·科倫(Leonard Koren)是一位設計理論家，他寫過關于日本美學各個方面的文章。前不久他告訴我，這樣的觀念對他這位西方人來說簡直是醍醐灌頂。科倫說，日本人對物品的過分在意甚至敬畏是對日本地形的理性反應。他在日本待了十年，曾出版《侘寂對藝術家、設計師、詩人和哲學家的意義》(Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers)。

“Think of the kimono, and the tradition of folding,” he said. “There is also the furoshiki, which is basically a square of flat cloth used daily to wrap packages. Folding is deep and pervasive in Japanese culture. Folding is a key strategy of modular systems that have evolved because of limited living space.”

“想一想日本的和服和折疊傳統(tǒng)，”他說，“還有風呂敷——它其實就是日常裹包袱的方布。折疊深刻而普遍地存在于日本文化中。折疊是模塊化系統(tǒng)的關鍵方法，是由于生活空間有限而演生出來的。”

He added: “More spiritually, the idea of non-dualism is a relationship to reality that proposes that everything is inextricably connected and alive, even inanimate objects. If we are compassionate and respectful to everything that exists, then we would have to be compassionate about the socks in the drawer that aren’t folded properly.”

他補充說：“從更深的精神層面講，泛神論是與現(xiàn)實的一種關系，它認為一切事物都是緊密相連的、有生命的，甚至包括靜物。如果我們同情、尊重所有存在的東西，那么我們就必然會同情抽屜里沒疊好的襪子。”

Indeed, Ms. Kondo’s instructions regarding socks are eye-opening. Socks bust their chops for you, and if you ball them up, they don’t get a chance to rest. As she puts it, “The socks and stockings stored in your drawer are essentially on holiday.”

的確，近藤對襪子的理解讓人大開眼界。襪子努力為你服務，如果你把它們弄得一團糟，它們就沒機會好好休息。就像她說的，“存放在你抽屜里的襪子實際上是在度假。”

Mine were obviously having a terrible time, torqued and twisted like coach passengers on an overcrowded flight to Europe.

我的襪子顯然活得很慘，一個個東扭西歪，像坐在飛往歐洲的過于擁擠的航班上。

My weekend was lost to Ms. Kondo. After three days, I had given four bags of clothing and two bags of shoes to the Salvation Army, along with two dead computers. (Like Staples and Best Buy in New York City, the Salvation Army is a recycling drop-off location for electronics.) Two-thirds of my fridge — jam dating to 2010, undated tubes of tomato paste — ended up in the trash.

我的周末獻給了近藤。三天后，我把四袋衣服和兩袋鞋子捐給了救世軍組織(Salvation Army)，一道送去的還有兩臺廢棄的電腦(與紐約市的史泰博辦公用品公司[Staples]和百思買電器商店[Best Buy]一樣，救世軍組織也是一個電子產(chǎn)品回收點)。我扔掉了冰箱里三分之二的東西——包括2010年的果醬和幾管日期不明的番茄醬。

“Where is all the food?” my daughter wailed.

“吃的都哪兒去了?”我女兒悲嘆道。

Giddy, I twirled ribbons into circles and nestled them in a drawer with a stack of tissue paper, notecards and rolls of Scotch tape. I threw lone gloves out with near drunken abandon. And I smugly noted that my hoarding habits could be worse. In a section titled “Astounding Stockpiles I Have Seen,” Ms. Kondo writes of the client with 60 toothbrushes and of another with 80 rolls of toilet paper. The record, she says, was the client who stockpiled 20,000 cotton swabs.

我頭暈目眩地把絲帶卷成圈，讓它們和抽屜里的一堆紙巾、記事卡和透明膠帶依偎在一起。我?guī)еⅤ傅目穹?，扔掉了那些單只手套。我自鳴得意地發(fā)現(xiàn)，我的囤積習慣還不算嚴重。近藤的書中有一章叫“我見過的令人震驚的囤積”，里面提到，有一位客戶存了60把牙刷，還有一位客戶存了80卷衛(wèi)生紙。她說，最令人震驚的是一位客戶存了兩萬根棉簽。