The art of living without sex

After his divorce, Carl Cederström decided to become celibate, focusing instead on his kids, his book, baking bread, and folding plastic bags into tiny triangles. But is there still space for physical intimacy?

Cederstrom's newfound self is one part Japanese monk and one part American housewife (TT News Agency/PA)

I am folding plastic bags into small triangles. I take out all the old stuff from dark wardrobes and forgotten pantries. I fold the clothes into neat bundles and pour food into transparent plastic containers on to which I paste dymo labels. I stop going out and start baking bread and planting flowers.

To “sublimate”, I learn from the dictionary, is a phenomenon that is closely associated with sexual drives and aims to elevate something to a higher plane, especially through spiritual, intellectual, artistic, scientific or altruistic activity. To which of these elevated activities plastic-bag folding belongs I never learn.

It’s Easter and we have not yet moved apart. She’s in a house in the country with her parents and the children. Everyone thinks I’m with friends in the forest, but I’m alone at home in town. The documents are already written and submitted. The sun is flooding in through the kitchen window and I am sitting newly divorced on the floor, gently stroking plastic bags, and I don’t feel as broken as I look.