Greetings, gorgeous souls,

I lost my journal this weekend. Not lost lost, but due to my travel schedule, I won't get it back for probably 6+ weeks. But, 6 weeks? What does 6 weeks even mean these days?

Welcome, my friends, to another exploration (I almost said rant, but I’m working on being kind to myself)about invisible forces and their effect on us.

You know Old Daddy Time. The dude who lords over us as the master of the universe, whether we admit it or not. None of us can escape him. We can’t buy more time, at least not unless we are willing to heat and cool ourselves continuously in succession in an effort to hack our lives, whatever that means. But even the Hubermans of the world can’t escape the effects of time when, say, singing karaoke, but forgetting a word, and realizing, well, you’re just late. C’est la vie.  

Do you think we're on time here?  Big Papa didn't have high hopes, I bet.

Even though time ticks on, we still perceive time relative to other events in our lives. When I'm writing a song, time speeds up and slows down all at the same time. When I'm starting a run? 2 minutes can feel like 2 years.  

For me, my relationship to time changed after lockdown. When we were home all the time, we didn’t experience excitement or change in a way that anchored our brains into moments in time. Without these anchors, my brain perceived the days as long and the weeks and months as short, at first, and then longer as lockdown dragged on. And now that I'm traveling, seeing different people and places in person, and changing my daily routine (or not having a routine anymore, basically), more and more new events anchor me in time. So my brain has tons of events to look back on to gauge how time passes. But the increased frequency of these anchors makes me think that the days are longer than they actually are. Now that I have more anchors, I have more time, right?  Nice try, Lauren.

This time perception change has even more contributed to my general weirdness. I texted my friend one day, and then 4 days later, I realized I hadn't responded yet. But I actually thought it had only been maybe 12 hours. I was off by 8x.  8 times!!! Fake Einstein is going to have to explain the theory of relativity to me and how that works here. (I honestly probably will read that book again.)

When I get my journal back in 6 weeks, I know I'm going to feel like it's been with me the whole time.  Where else will I be so off?

Perhaps my brain will recalibrate after it gets used to all these new anchors. I know lockdown also recalibrated other important perceptions, including the perceptions of threats and crises. If you agree, please tell me, and tell me what's changed for you.  I'll have to think more about the impact on other parts of my life.

And, almost as if I'm proving my point here, I totally forgot that today I am releasing a brand new song, with a brand new style. I've been working with a new collaborator and she and I sit in the studio, and magic seems to happen. Ghosts is the very first song that we worked on together, and I swear, our collaboration is aging like my favorite scotch style american whiskey - fast, and oh so good. I'm excited to show you what's next. As always, if you want a preview, hit that pretty little reply button.  

Always, 

X

P.S.  Speaking of time, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMMY! My beautiful sister's birthday is today, on the fall equinox.  Love you!!

THANKS FOR READING!