Month August 2023

Matt Haig: Does Extra Time Bring Happiness?

Reg Spittle 2 Comments

Do you ever wish you could slow your body clock? What if you would age just a year for every two years? Would it be even better if you would age just a year for every 15 years? Extra time also comes with a bonus: You would be immune from human illnesses.

Ready to sign up?

Wait a minute. How long before people around you proclaim, “You look so young! How do you do it?” After a few more years, what if people, fearing that you are not normal, pull away from you, even suspect that you are evil personified? Your parents, siblings, wife, children, grow old and die while you age just a few years.

You might enjoy being 18 for 15 years, but would you feel as good about being in your 80s for 150 years? What would happen if you told people the truth?

In Matt Haig’s How to Stop Time, Tom Hazard is a 41-year-old high school history teacher in England whose real life has spanned 439 years. He ages normally until he is 13, when it takes 15 years for him to age to 14. Born in 1581, he works with Shakespeare and sails with Captain Cook.

As much as he is enthralled with technological advances and opportunities to know famous historical figures, Tom harbors regrets and worries about his future, keeping him from enjoying the present most of the time.

Tom tells his story through travels to his past. He knows there are others like him, and they are protected by the Albatross Society, whose leader’s most important rule is to never fall in love. Tom had a wife and daughter many years before, but, now, he falls for a high school French teacher. He must decide whether to push her away or to let go of the restrictions, tell her his secrets, and live in the present. Have four centuries been enough time for him to learn how to be happy?

Haig has been forthcoming about his own mental health struggles. Mental health themes come through in this and two other of his novels I have read, Midnight Library, and The Humans. I recommend all three thought-provoking books.

Matt Haig’s literary fame was boosted when actor/producer Bernard Cumberbatch purchased the film rights to How to Stop Time. Cumberbatch plans to play the lead.

John Muir Trail: ‘We Can’t Do That?’

Reg Spittle 11 Comments



“We can’t do that!”

Those were my words when Sue said we should walk across Spain on a famed pilgrimage.

The Camino de Santiago and distance trails in seven countries have taught me to question my first reaction to a backpacking challenge.

Two years ago, Sue and I tackled the John Muir Trail in California’s Sierra Nevada. Mules helped carry our stuff, but our legs carried us 246 miles from Horseshoe Meadow southeast of Mount Whitney to Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley. One of the most memorable days was the trek to the Mount Whitney summit; the bottom photo shows me on the switchbacks above Guitar Lake during my climb to the highest point in the continental USA. The other photos show us at Muir Hut and near Cathedral Peak.

We slept in a small Nemo tent, filtered our water, and went without showers or toilets for 30 days. It was all part of the adventure that kept us above 10,000 feet much of the way on a trail through astounding scenery.

Sue and I are preparing for our seventh distance trek, which begins September 1. If we are able to complete the 42 days on the trail, it will be our longest trek yet. This time, we plan to carry everything we need, but our packs won’t contain a tent or sleeping bags.

Stay tuned.