Today, right now, I am sitting at my desk in Williams Bay. I bought my desk in Canada back when their dollar traded for 65% of ours, and I drove home from Canada with this desk wrapped in cardboard, tied to the roof rack of an old Jeep. I thought the desk was a deal and that I had pulled off an international importers coup, until I realized it wasn’t and I hadn’t. This is not important. Today wherever you are, sitting at your office desk, sitting at a chair in Starbucks, or wrapped up on your suburban couch with a blanket warming your toes, all of these possible locations are also unimportant. Today is March first, which is important, but not so much when the calendar sounds like spring but the scenery paints like winter. Today, no matter where you are and what you’re doing, is not really that important. All days might be important, but if we’re operating under the possibly flawed assumption that most of us have many days left, what difference does today really make?
Today, like yesterday and like tomorrow, are days that I will enjoy. They are days that I will be happy to be alive, though they are days that if stacked as pages in a thick book I’d more than likely flip past. Winter days are like that to me, they’re good reads for a while, but after you get the general idea and feel what it is those pages are trying to tell you, they’re pretty much all the same. So today, like the rest of the days that led me to right now, I’ll live and enjoy, but on a day like today it’s hard to pretend there isn’t something more important on the horizon. Today isn’t all that important, but today a countdown begins in earnest. The countdown really began dozens of days ago, in November, but today the numbers have been pared and whittled to such an extent that the crossing off of each one is significant. Today is going to be a good day, but tomorrow is going to be better.
Today, you’re there and I’m here. We’re both alive, which is good. It’s very good. No one can dispute that being alive today is good, even my grandmother who is 96. She’ll say she should have died a long time ago, that it’s no fun being 96 when your friends are dead and your grandchild who sells real estate in an office located 100 yards from your house doesn’t visit nearly enough. She says those things, but neither of us believe them. It’s good to be alive today, which, by default, means it was good to be alive yesterday, and with a little luck we’ll feel the same about tomorrow. But today isn’t really that important, and where you are today means little to me. There will be days over the next several bunches that are more important than others. My daughter’s birthday is in March. My birthday is in May. Who am I to say that the first day I go fishing this spring isn’t the most important of days? I’m no one to say that, which is why I would never say such a thing. Who would?
I’ll tell you what day would be important- the first day I fish this spring and actually catch a fish. And if that fish were a northern pike, the day would still be important. But if the fish were a rainbow trout and the morning was still and cool but the sun was warm with the promise of spring, then that day would be far more important. I might even deem it to be the most important day since last October, the day that the boats were pulled. Those days were important, but they were important because of something sad. Like how the anniversary of a loved one’s death is important, but not because you’re happy about it. When I turn 33 in May, that will be an important day not because it is a sad day, but because my birthdays make me feel important. They make me listen to Better Than Ezra songs, and think about days in May when I was in high school and the roads were wet with spring even when it wasn’t raining. I’ll never, ever, pretend that my birthday isn’t an important day.
I know an important day when I see one. Today, it’s important. But 88 days from today is going to be more important. Maybe days in the future shouldn’t be important to us. Maybe they shouldn’t even be counted on. Maybe we should just live today and never think about tomorrow. Maybe we shouldn’t. If that were the case I’d get in my car and order one of everything off the menu at Balsan, which would make today fun in an obese way but it would make tomorrow and the dieting choices that I’d have to make in order to overcome today even more important. Maybe the promise of tomorrow is as important as today. Maybe it’s tomorrow that makes today tolerable, and maybe the promise of a summer that I know arrives in 88 days is even more important than that. Whatever the case, and wherever you are, if the Friday that falls 88 days from today isn’t important, perhaps it’s time to make it so.
88 days from today, my life changes. It changes every Friday before Memorial Day, no matter if I plan on it changing or not. That day is always important. This year, it’s going to be more important, this much I promise you. Today, I’m itchy. I’m sweaty. My eyes are strained and my ears plugged. Everything looks dull to me and sounds like I’m listening to the world around me with my grandmothers 96 year old ears. Is it true that ears never stop growing? That’s not important. Today I’ll knock off the last few cords of a winter that has held me captive, and I’ll set my sights on that magical Friday 88 days from today. There will be Fridays in between, and they will be important. But the Friday that signals the start of my 34th Lake Geneva summer is one that I will anticipate more than any day since those boats were pulled last October. Christmas, for some, comes in December. For me, the only present that I’ve been waiting for will be torn open with vigor, by me, a mere 88 days from today.
Today, it’s important. Tomorrow too. But if your life doesn’t change for the better 88 days from today, you don’t know what you’re missing. 88 days from today Daniel Gross will be polishing the supports on his back yard trampoline, and dumping the last jug of chemicals into his back yard pool. He’ll scoop out the floating chipmunks that should have known better, and he’ll declare summer to have arrived. Me? I’ll be in a boat, plying the waters of my 5200 acre dream. I’ll be watching the green shore and watching the blue waves. I’ll soak in the sun and I’ll etch the smiles on my childrens faces into my memory forever. Luckily, there is still time to circle that Friday in May on your own calendar. Like a modern day Scrooge, you’ll be pleased to know that as you awake from your winter slumber, there are still 88 days left, you haven’t missed the big day. There is time to make your summer matter on an unimportant day like today. March, it’s nice to see you. Now please hurry up and end so that I can get to the most important day on my calendar. Besides my birthday.