Summer Times

I don’t remember what day my summer started, but I’m pretty sure that it started before yours did. I can’t say what day that was this year, but it was some warm day in May, where a white boat was moving over blue water. It would have been the day that I had waited for since the last day of my last summer, sometime last October. I say October but it might have been September. It probably was September. Even so, that day was a great day, even though I don’t remember it all that much. I don’t remember it now because the feeling of warm sun on my skin isn’t something I’m far removed from today. I felt that sun yesterday and I’ll feel it today, and for a while in July I felt so much of it that I’m pretty sure I wanted to stop feeling it, at least for a while. Summer, it’s moving.

And while it moves, I must tell you that I’m filled with regret. This summer I have failed, whereas last summer I excelled. No one summered better that I did last summer. No one. Last summer, 8 year olds everywhere recognized that I was the king of that summer. I found moments to steal away and hide on the bow of a boat or under a luffing sail, and in those moments I found my summer again and again. I went swimming more than I had during any summer in memory, and I fished and boated and sailed my way through a most beautiful Lake Geneva summer. That summer kept my winter at bay, and when the winter was mild and the winter was short, I saw no reason that this long summer wouldn’t be just as the last one was. Long.

This summer things have been different. I’ve been busier. Way busier. I sold my primary home, I moved, I bought another place, and I’m three weeks away from having someone else dig a great big hole in order for someone to pour a whole bunch of concrete into it. I’ve been blessed to sell somewhere around $15MM worth of real estate in these first eight months of 2012, and while those sales provide the means for the busy moves above, they also keep me at a desk or in a car or always on the phone. The business of life has taken its toll this year, and as I sit on August 22nd I feel a stranger to the summer that last year I knew so dearly well. I am as Mr. Browne, a pretender.

I wrote a short story in my Summer Homes For City People magazine this year, a story about regrets. I explained that last summer I lived without them, and I loved the summer in the same way that our president loves our 1040’s. There wasn’t a free evening last summer that I can remember pushing away the pull of the lake, and I lived that summer as I always wanted to. I worked, sure, plenty. But I played too. I worked and then I played and then when the night rolled in I slept. When I woke up, I did it all over again. And it worked. It was a fine routine, but it was a routine that I couldn’t hold together beyond last fall.

I have thoughts today about next summer, already. If I can see my family settled into our new house, then I might be able to see quiet afternoon moments on a still boat or late evenings spent under the stars with a fishing pole in my hand and no designs that by holding that pole I might actually catch some memorable fish. I see mornings spent under a lightening sky, the steering wheel wet with dew and my face stung from the cold spring air. I see all sorts of things, but between now and then there is more work, more calls, more concerns.

I need time. That’s what I need. More time. This summer has been fine, but I admit to you today that I’ve missed it. I’ve shamefully burned just a tank or two of gas in my smoky boat. I’ve sailed more this year, but even that isn’t enough to offset the way I feel. I thought for a moment I’d accompany my wife and kids to a small cabin in the northwoods of Minnesota, where we might capture a few days of summer life the way that I lived those few days each summer when I was a boy. But new listings today and troubled deals tomorrow and the calls and emails, they won’t let me go. Maybe there is redemption still out there for me. Maybe there’s time. Maybe there isn’t.

On August 22nd, there is plenty of summer left. There is a month of it or more, before the chilly mornings and the chilly afternoons turn our thoughts from summer swimming to fall cruising, from sweet corn on the grill to chili on the stove. But during this next month, I’m going to try to get some of my summer back. I can’t uncover any more summer in the months that I’ve now wasted, but perhaps with a little more dedication on my part I can find enough summer in these waning days to tide me over what will likely be a long, miserable winter. Today I am as Scrooge, telling the world that while I’ve come dangerously close to missing this summer, I haven’t entirely missed it just yet.