Adjustment

Ages ago, I started imagining what it would be like to take two whole months off work:

I’d spend mornings lounging on the sofa, dozing over a novel. I’d go to art museums with my mother, have dinner with friends. I’d wander the streets of New York. All the harried New Yorkers would pass me by; I’d be lingering by shop windows, eating an ice cream cone — just fast enough to keep it from melting down my fingers. The weather would be perfect. Indeed, an unusual portion of the day would be suffused with the kind of light you only see right before the sun sets. In my imagined future, I was completely relaxed. Languid.

Now that this future has — abruptly — arrived, I can report that I’ve been doing what I’d planned. Sofa, check. Dinner, check. But it’s not the same. There’s been rain and estate agents. I keep waking up at three in the morning. Languid? In the middle of major career change and geographic dislocation? As if.

I dislike this feature of the Future: No matter where you go, or how carefully you plan — once the Future arrives, it’s always remarkably like the Present.