Field notes from the in-between

Hello Reader,

It’s been a weird time. Another one of those inbetweeners. Between here and there. Rounding a bend. Entering a new, bigger space. These little deaths and new births happen simultaneously, and frequently, if we’re growing like milk-fed teenagers who don’t smoke.

Yet, they’re discombobulating and unsettling because we don’t know where we’re going or what’s next. This uncertain unknown is hard to stay in. Old habits kick in like attention-seeking Kardashians.

The desire to stir shit up arises, so I can create a sense of control and certainty. Then it’s my chaos, goddammit. A distraction from the reality of not knowing what’s coming around the next bend.

After a year and a half, my foot is releasing off the gas of my book, Welcome to the Creative Club. Another book is calling, but I don’t know what it will be or when I’ll start. Something feels off about my routine. I’m too homebound, but I’m not sure how to solve it. I’m restless.

The old itch to move has resurfaced after being dormant for years.

I’m reminded of what my therapist told me after my divorce, when I was contemplating moving to Paris, “This restlessness is part of you.” A byproduct of having moved so often as a child and an adult.

She compared it to her inner yank to buy a custard cruller every time she passed a donut shop. The itch to stuff a gaping hole with sweets would always be a part of her. It might start off as a banshee scream, “WANT CAKE NOW”, but would eventually quiet to a whisper, if she didn’t act on it again and again.

I’m not trying to get rid of the restlessness or reject parts of myself. But rather accept it and not follow its siren song into old chaos reruns of the Law & Order variety. Same story, different backdrop.

When defense mechanisms and knee-jerk reactions arise, but we don’t follow their orders, we weaken them. The past may bleed into the present, but it doesn’t have to stain it.

My therapist said this feeling might always live within me. There’s a freedom in this realization. It’s also a shame-remover. It means I don’t have to struggle to change it, to be better or my best self; to fight against parts of me that at some point saved me, took care of me, and rocked me in the night of life’s chaos.

In some ways, acceptance is harder. But only then can I choose how I want to be with this restlessness; this chaotic, destructive, and creative energy.

I feel like breaking shit again. Moving. Changing it up. Creating a new, fresh experience. Breaking myself out of routine. Knowing what’s next because I create it.

But I won’t do it. Instead, I’ll be with the feeling. Since I’ve been sitting with it, I’ve discovered its origin: not knowing what’s going to happen next. Fear says: Nothing will happen. Autopilot says: Then, we’ll do something. Inner Yoda says: Stay here.

This desire to know is an attempt at control. It rears its head when things feel uncertain, unsure, and darling, we’ve been here before. The restlessness is both old and new. It’s old because I’ve moved, stirred up, and thrown my cards in the air to feel alive, in control, and comfortable because chaos is what I knew. New because, since I am not acting on it, I can decipher its message.

It is here to tell me something. The irony is that I need to be still to hear it.

I don’t know what’s next. I have dreams, ideas, and yearnings, but the runway is unclear. The desire for something different is strong. I’m drawn to the idea of having a villa in Italy. I renovate one of the barns into an artist residency, creative retreat space, and place to write books, co-create a magazine, and other creative projects I can’t even fathom. I dream of community that goes way beyond social media.

I’m inspired by Alex Holder’s creative journey in advertising, writing for Elle and Bumble, then a book, and now co-founding Salted Books, an English-language bookshop in Lisbon with her partner. Dreamy.

I stumble on imagined futures and possibilities in the uncertain unknown while at my desk drinking a matcha latte, the sun drenching my lavender and rosemary bushes outside.

I’ve done the opposite of my usual: I’ve slowed down. Meditated more. Stop forcing, pushing, or trying to control. I’m sitting with the discomfort like the itch of a wool sweater.

What’s coming in loud and clear: Just be here. Show up, follow the pointed finger of your heart, and pay attention. Drop the idea of what needs to happen; the expectation of timeline and outcome. Be patient. Release into this moment here, and this one, and this one. Stay here.

It’s hard until it isn’t. The inner clash passes. Then rolls in again. This practice releases old patterns and designs new ones. It’s the process of letting parts of myself die, new ones birthing, simultaneously. But I am too close. I'm inside the chrysalis. My vision blurs. I stare at the green pillow fleshy softness.

This restlessness shows me something needs to change. A year ago, a tarot reader told me one day I’d have to choose between what I used to do and my own creative path. I don’t know if that day is coming. I do know that I miss creating more and feel at a loss to understand what my creative path looks like, and how to make an overflowing income from my art.

Old beliefs have resurfaced: To earn a substantial living, I need to work within the corporate world. I thought I’d rewritten that in cursive script, but it’s back again in Comic Sans. The only way to truly rewrite it is to behave like I actually believe it.

This feels REALLY big - where do I even begin? How do I hold gratitude for all that I have and trust the work is here because it’s what I need (and I do), while also feeling the restless call for something new, more, else?

Again, the answer is to slow down and get quiet (while a part of me wants to scream, move fast, and just know already).

In this quiet, I applied for a writing residency and submitted my book for an award. I had to write a summary of my new project in the application form, and even though I don’t know if that’s what the book will be about, it was interesting to see an idea and a title tumble out of me.

Ultimately, I have to be in the unknown. Stay in it. Don’t try to run, kick up dust, and take the reins to create more uncertainty, so at least I’m the one doing it. Just stay and see what unfolds. I don’t know why that feels hard, but it does.

But we can do hard things. Pass slices of gâteau Marcel in the window and not go in to buy it. Feel the tug of a restless tornado trying to take us to Oz, and stay in Kansas. Read the old soothing, limiting, and repetitive scripts, but not act them out. Write new ones instead. Choose to do things differently, adding a side of uncertainty to the unknown meal.

Enjoy releasing into the river, bathing suits sticking to our skin, floating on the current, goosebumps making arm hairs stand on end, unsure about where the flow will take us. But at least it’s new and we feel thunderously, gut-wrenchingly, alive.

Keep consciously creating,