I counted graves when I was five years old. I enjoyed playing with death, and I remember breaking through brambles in the hope of uncovering abandoned headstones in the churchyard near my grandmother’s home.

Forgotten grave, the owner obscure.

There were, of course, rules to my graveyard game: I always found it good to discover a headstone from the 1800’s… but my true pleasure was tracing my fingers over an inscription from the 1790’s.

Little Jordan, bless his morbid mind, was somehow smitten with the sensation of standing above the remains of a stranger buried exactly two hundred years before he was born.

Two hundred years from the end of their life to the beginning of mine - an eternity for a five year old.

Picture this: a small-town churchyard, no more or less special than the thousands of historical parishes littered across England, and a boy breaking from an adult’s hand as he skips towards the tired and scattered landmarks of forgotten lives.

Curated caskets were boring.

I wasn’t interested in fresh bouquets or the well-maintained memorials close to the church walls. I wanted to explore beyond the brambles.

Those moments without parental supervision, those fleeting intervals when I would escape from the designated path on weekend walks.

I can still remember how it felt to gather momentum as I bouldered through the bushes towards the obscure corners of the cemetery which were no longer deserving of care or attention.

The pursuit of the past, it felt like freedom.

In addition to the treasures of the 1790’s, I found it especially interesting to find oversized gravestones where the husband and wife shared their final inscriptions.

The ‘best gravestones’ were those where the lovers died within a year of each other or - better yet - during the exact same year.

They died of heartbreak. I liked that.

Upon reflection, I have no idea why I enjoyed the graveyard game so much. I didn’t care for the prim and proper veneer of the recently deceased - maybe I wanted to feel the weight of history?

To tell the truth, I hesitate to share this story with you because I know it’s weird for a child to find pleasure in wandering through a graveyard on their own, but the truth is that I’ve always found comfort in the past.

Strangely, and for reasons still unknown, I still find warmth amongst the dead. I enjoy taking distance from living relationships to spend quality time with deceased teachers.

Strangers don’t feel so strange, and I recognise the irony that the past is repeating itself when I read three books from three dead authors during my three offline days this week.

I never stopped playing the graveyard game?

All my favourite teachers are dead, and the majority of books in my library are from people who no longer enjoy the breath we take for granted.

My shelves are a stroll through a field of bones.

Each spine, a tomb.

Each cover, a headstone.

My online presence is the presence of the past, and my work is a garden on the graves of my teachers.

As this new week begins, I turn off my phone and find myself standing hand-in-hand with my five year old self: history becomes the future, and we trace our fingers across the dreams of the dead together.

Jordan