I’m cursed with a malfunctioning ability to dream. It wasn’t always this way, but it has been for most of my adult life, or at least that’s the way I remember it. I dream, even if less frequently than I would like to, but in all of my dreams I know I’m dreaming. It’s a terrible affliction. Do you soar like a bird in your dreams? I don’t, because I know I’m not a bird and 42 year old men cannot fly. If I catch myself flying in a dream I immediately wake up to chastise my inner self for imagining such absurdity. In all of my life, the most realistic dream I ever had was one in which I was standing on the tennis courts in Williams Bay on a sunny spring day. I was dreaming this in winter, but I could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin and I felt alive with optimism. Though I felt that in my dream just as sure as it was real, I quickly woke up because even in my most potent dream I knew that I was dreaming of May in February and only a fool could entertain such folly.
In spite of this terrible condition, I find myself daydreaming of summer on this warmish week in late February. I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like to, because I have approximate one trillion deals under contract and most of them require considerable daily effort. If only the business of real estate was as easy as it looks on TV, or as easy as my friends and family think it must be. In spite of this constant effort and the season I see outside this gigantic new office window I feel the warmth of a Lake Geneva summer and I cannot wait for it. I’ve felt it so many times that I know exactly what it’s like, what it looks like and what it feels like and what it sounds like and to this day there is nothing that I find as comforting and familiar as an afternoon spent on this lake. I should note that I have zero interest in spending a summer afternoon on a boat on another lake. I would rather be strapped to a pontoon boat and paraded through downtown on a summer weekend than find myself on some other dirty dishwater lake.
The issue is that as soon as I settle in to a momentary daydream where I find myself on my boat under a cloudless July sky I think about what my summer really looks like. It looks like that, sure, to some fleeting extent. But it mostly looks like this computer and this desk and this chair that I bought that, while the leather is divine, doesn’t even tilt back. What sort of desk chair doesn’t tilt? And beyond that, do you know how hot it’s going to be when I’m driving in my entirely unpractical vehicle, the one that doesn’t have air-conditioning aside from the little vents that I have to open to let some warm summer air blow in? Do you know how deflating it is to think about an afternoon of sunshine and water and Cobalt blue boats and then actually have to spend that afternoon inside sitting on a chair that won’t tilt? Of course you do, because you have to work, too. Working is such a terrible way to make a living.
But alas, I will take these little summer daydreams and use them to my advantage. I will use them as motivation. I’m going to force myself to enjoy this summer. Last summer was a whirlwind of stupid masks and anxious buyers. This summer is going to be different. I’m going leave myself no option but to enjoy this place and indulge in the season is does best. Summer days cannot be stored in jars to be pulled from the cellar and opened on these February mornings. They spoil and expire and anyone of them not enjoyed is sinfully wasted. From this vantage point I can see summer and I can dream of it, but I also have no option but to weigh the practical application of that dream. Thankfully, this is one dream I don’t mind controlling, and control it I will.