A beach day
Not in the best of health. Even so, I spent the day out with my family, at a museum and a windy, chilly Lake Michigan beach. We were joined by my old schoolmate, Dan, and his family. Funny how bearable an illness can be around old friends. There were billowy clouds and lovely, white-tipped waves; we didn’t bathe, but the children used the playground. Daniel (my son) so enjoyed it that at leaving-time, he had to be carried, against his will, off the beach and back to the car (mercifully, he scaled the biggest hill himself).
We were mostly in touristy St. Joe, Michigan, but also took a wrong turn through Benton Harbor, the poorer twin, which has run-down churches with names like Aún Hay Esperanza.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I’m reading Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which I found in the nearest Free Little Library. Ursula Todd (1910–1910, 1910–1914, etc.) lives, dies, is reborn, and lives her same life again. And again. Her lifespan lengthens because déjà vu teaches her to avoid mishaps. (It takes her a few tries to figure out how to avoid getting Spanish flu.) It’s like watching a video gamer replaying levels; or the movie Groundhog Day set in Downton Abbey’s England (not Punxsutawney). Atkinson thrusts barbs at her characters, especially the loathsome doctor who delivers Ursula (she sometimes survives his care, sometimes doesn’t). The repetition gets macabre and downright funny. Working out the metaphysic isn’t easy. Michael Huemer’s theory of reincarnation comes closest, perhaps. But on that view the déjà vu wouldn’t transmit real memories; and it’d be unlikely – or, strictly speaking, rare – that the same younger siblings would be sired after Ursula.
We were mostly in touristy St. Joe, Michigan, but also took a wrong turn through Benton Harbor, the poorer twin, which has run-down churches with names like Aún Hay Esperanza.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I’m reading Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which I found in the nearest Free Little Library. Ursula Todd (1910–1910, 1910–1914, etc.) lives, dies, is reborn, and lives her same life again. And again. Her lifespan lengthens because déjà vu teaches her to avoid mishaps. (It takes her a few tries to figure out how to avoid getting Spanish flu.) It’s like watching a video gamer replaying levels; or the movie Groundhog Day set in Downton Abbey’s England (not Punxsutawney). Atkinson thrusts barbs at her characters, especially the loathsome doctor who delivers Ursula (she sometimes survives his care, sometimes doesn’t). The repetition gets macabre and downright funny. Working out the metaphysic isn’t easy. Michael Huemer’s theory of reincarnation comes closest, perhaps. But on that view the déjà vu wouldn’t transmit real memories; and it’d be unlikely – or, strictly speaking, rare – that the same younger siblings would be sired after Ursula.