The Pyramid of Distractions

In my period of enforced convalescence I have had to find ways to amuse myself. Unable to get out and explore Munich I have had to revert back to the familiar methods of entertainment, strategies of preoccupation that harken back to school sick days. At the basal layer of this is the ultimate time-passer of them all: sleep. Maybe it is because of the anabolism in my right foot or perhaps it is the winter hibernation effect but I have passed a good part of my week cocooned in both my duvet and dreams. I suspect I am also terminally lazy.

The next layer of Himmi’s Pyramid of Distractions are passive pursuits such as watching TV or listening to podcasts. I say podcasts, by which I mean streaming vignettes off YouTube. In the lonely daylight hours, when I should be occupied at work, I keep the computer on to ensure a companionable babble surrounds me. This is essential to prevent overwhelming feelings of self-pity, which if not checked, can lead to a ridiculous episode of weeping whilst singing the Beatles’ “Yesterday” in a long nightie.

At the more active ends of the entertainment spectrum are reading and then at the pinnacle, writing. I say active although I know from observing someone reading, snug in an armchair with a cup of tea and a cat on their lap, it can seem anything but. However, if you compare it to the seamless input of information from a radio or TV screen, reading involves a lot more computational effort on the reader’s part. First, there are words, which must be read and decoded in terms of grammar and sentence structure. Then one must conjure up images or interpretations of the sentences, which depending on the subject matter can take rather a long time (I, for instance, have been struggling with the expansive sentences in one of Heinrich Böll’s books for six months now). Finally one must keep the overall plot of the book in one’s mind in order to add new read information to it.

If reading is active, writing feels even more effortful (with the possible exception of reading Böll that is). Not only must one deliver the above listed three part-process in an clear manner to the reader, but one must also be interesting, clever and if appropriate, funny. The act of creating a piece of writing is often a struggle, which is why followers of my blog will often see entries dashed out on a Sunday night. Needless to say, in my period of recuperation I have been shying away from the most active end of the spectrum and happily focusing on Netflix.

Philippe, however, worrying that I was developing a martyr/couch potato complex from my compulsive sofa-side singing of “Yesterday,” suggested a trip to the library. Fresh air, books, you know, human interaction, were his recommendations instead of my preferred combination of painkillers and self-absorption.

“But my foot!” I protested.

“It’s not broken,” came his unimpressed reply.

“Well, we don’t know that.,” I said, grumbling under my breath as I struggled on my supportive boot. “There was no x-ray.”

He was right though. Limping into the Schwabing public library, I breathed the musty air of borrowed books and it was the tonic I needed. During my time in Munich I have only ventured into the imposing halls of the Staatsbibliothek (State Library), an uncuddly place with severe lines and surfaces meant to deter distraction. Schwabing Library was the antithesis of this and much more akin to the local libraries of the UK. Between examples of reject office furniture, a hodgepodge of books jostled on the shelves, their different sizes a welcome nonconformity when compared to the imposing rows in the Staatsbibliothek.

As I hobbled along the aisles, my head quirked sideways whilst reading the spines, I felt a familiar excitement start to rise. Here be treasure. In one corner were cookery books, another philosophy and in the middle there were aisle upon aisle of brightly covered, designed-to-entice novels. Here were hundreds of different worlds and ideas to dip into and they could all be mine. I could borrow as many things as I wanted without having to worry about anything other than how Philippe was going to carry them home. It was the same benevolent, exhilarating experience as the library system in the U.K., only this time it was in German. I came home with a bevy of books, as light and entertaining as I needed (some had pictures in them) to entice me away from the TV and up to the second tier.

So here I currently sit atop the Pyramid, foot diligently elevated, having bashed out a blog and thus done my most strenuous “activity” for the week. It is with great pleasure that I hop down a level to my waiting books and tuck in. Every cloud has a silver library it seems.