Writer’s Blog: If You Were A Fly On The Wall

Filed under .

If you were a fly on the wall, you’d be forgiven for thinking me insane.

There are three empty bedrooms in the house, but every night I lay down to sleep in the back garden.

There are two good showers here, too, but I hang a bag of water up outside and wash beneath it.

I could prepare elaborate meals in the fully-featured kitchen, but instead I eat only bread and cheese, or what I can cook in one pot.

And I could listen to any piece of music, from any genre, or any point in time, but I listen only to radio stations in languages I don’t understand.

There’s no particular need for me to go anywhere, but every day I get on my bike and ride it in a big pointless circle.

Yes, you’d be forgiven for thinking me insane. But in fact these acts are not only sane but necessary. It is an immeasurably vast leap from where I sit today to where I sat when the events that I’m writing about occurred. And in order not just flip through faded memories of that place and time, but to actually relive them in all their colour and context, I must take measures that look remarkably like acts of insanity.

Luckily, nobody’s watching but the flies.