Field notes from an old timeline
Quantum creativity, eating pie on a car hood, and crazy courage.
Am I reliving an old timeline?
Walking a looping trail littered with banana peels and granola bar wrappers, and the same paint marks on tree trunks.
Or am I reverting to what I know because I’m about to leap into what I don’t?
The past tries to pull us back to the cracked Chesterfield when we’re stepping into the wild overgrowth. It wants to keep us in a known world that feels safe, but a little dead and hollow inside.
I’ve felt that pull lately when I’ve slowed down.
Tugged by an old way of moving - pushing, forcing, doing, soaked tennis headband holding my thick hair back, blue light replacing the sun.
It was useful. A system default I fall back on because it worked. A somatic memory of training like Kobe Bryant, always in season.
This kept me safe, gave me a version of ‘success’.
But I've played this scene before—in agencies, building my own business, moving countries, working out, and in relationships.
I’m stepping into a new timeline, where a version of myself has shown me I make more art, money, and impact when I languish in the sweet now.
She’s taught herself it’s possible to take her foot off the gas, park outside a roadside diner, eat lemon meringue pie out of a plastic container on the hood of her car, while mapping constellations.
She has shown herself that stopping, resting, and allowing are not dangerous. That stillness and space are where ideas, people, and experiences enter.
I can see it and feel it, but I am not her yet.
I’m not prone to melancholy, so the lethargic weight I’ve felt over the past few weeks has been odd. By sitting with it, allowing it to just be there, then exploring it, I discovered it’s motion sickness.
I’m between timelines. Teetering on the edge of brutal, beautiful change.
For the first time, I napped in the middle of a workday last week. Last Friday, I stopped working at 3:00 pm, made matcha oat pancakes, and watched Pluribus. Another first.
Yesterday, I felt pressured to sit down and write this newsletter and get on with it already. I almost listened to that old version of myself. But the new timeline and my future self kept me in the kitchen, listening to Charli XCX, the sun casting shadow art on the floor, drinking pumpkin chai tea, and journaling - meeting myself. I can’t tell you how much I needed that.
At first, not doing more felt like wading through molasses. A part of me resisted taking it easy, slowing down, spending quality time with myself, processing. But it showed me I was between timelines, and that discovery was like Dramamine.
The old part of me doesn't go quietly.
I get frustrated at the inner doer-disciplinarian. She doesn't sing a siren song; she shouts through a megaphone. But that old part of me needs grace and compassion because she’s scared and protective. I can reassure her, thank her, and tell her we’re moving on, safely. That I am a capable, powerful Daddy who’s got this; who’s got her.
Growing up in the chaos of frequent moves, separation, and alcoholism, I was often in situations above my pay grade. I learned how to brace for what might turn the corner and manage the emotional landscape of my volatile, yet loving, parents.
Falling asleep under baby blue Mickey Mouse sheets to the sound of police shouting, “Step away from the vehicle,” on the Bowery in the 80s added to the mayhem.
I'd face it, power through, push, show up with my little chest puffed out, a fissure of vulnerability cracking beneath the sweaty bravado.
It once served me. But it no longer does—not without being directed. This force is a superpower when channeled, and kryptonite when it’s running the show, spitting directions into the air.
My new timeline requires more than redirection.
It needs new muscle memory, new evidence that another way is possible. And this way is slowly sipping a 30-year Japanese whiskey instead of chugging a Big Gulp, getting brain freeze trying to do more, to get somewhere, to be safe, to make it, instead of realizing I’m already all of these things right here, right now.
I need to take action, just a different kind.
Slowly spin my crystal rocks glass, lean back, stare at the ceiling, listen to Lana Del Rey. And that can feel so hard to do - at first (there are so many productive things I could do).
Moving between timelines, between two different speeds, feels nauseating. The past throws me a Gatorade, pushing me to sprint, and the future invites me to nap under wool blankets.
She’s been nudging me toward a slower, softer, more trusting movement—and the creative potential on the other side of chill.
The irony is that the only person stopping me from feeling free and spacious, wading into the present like clear blue water, is me. That past version of me on an old timeline.
And the only way to jump is to keep visiting the new timeline, where the belief that I can savor life is lived in all the small moments.
The moment when I choose to write a poem instead of an email. When I deeply kiss my husband before he leaves the house. When I trust money is here and on its way. When I luxuriate in mornings, pull a card, meet myself, and froth oat milk.
Ten seconds of crazy courage. That’s all it takes.
Ten seconds to make a different choice. To frolic instead of sprint, to sit and create, or just be present instead of ticking off boxes. To choose a different timeline.
Maybe nothing changes externally, or maybe everything does. But the energy you bring to it changes your experience, your reality. You feel different. Like you’ve stepped into a new, expansive version of yourself.
Until slowly, one day, you find yourself on a new timeline.
Keep [quantum] creating,
