Angel Love

Published on by LS Harteveld
This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.
Dear Sara,
.

In retrospect, it was probably to-be-expected, after my previous message to you.
That, of course, I would go on digging in the past, for men who reached my heart or more, after I had set up my new “system” to “handle” with men who were interested in me.
Neither system nor handle are exactly the right word, but it will have to do.

Either way access to me seems to be under control and I no longer need to be involved.
There is plenty of time to look back and reminisce.

Which could explain why someone I had not thought about – not like this! – came up again. He’s also the unnamed love interest from the final paragraphs of my previous message to you.
I didn’t remember until I just reread. Apparently he was already heavily on my mind, last time we talked.

The irony is that I have had many attempts to deliberately think about him, but I never succeeded.
I tried because I thought it would relieve the burden of feeling so much for my last lover. That I could transfer it to a borderline fictional crush from the past. Only to find out it didn’t quite work that way.
Then why now?

I’m grateful and it feels just as great as I imagined it would;
But why now?
Why was I able to recreate my affection towards him, in an entirely natural way, without any effort?

And then I found the answer!
Because the man I fell in love with last year, carries the exact same energy.

Now before I dive into this, a concept I will call Angel Love, describing the ethereal yet powerful presence both him and this new man have or had, I want to preface it by comparing it to another powerful, yet entirely different energy, which is from that past lover, Mr.Big.
The stark contrast between Angel Love and Mr.Big’s love, will bring my point across more vividly.

So first Mr.Big;
Why was I so extremely crazy about him, and why did I feel so safe and nurtured even though I was only his mistress? Nothing more was offered.
The answer lies in the inviting atmosphere Mr.Big created; 
Warm, nurturing, and completely low key.
He was completely at ease, and he kept his space clean, warm in winter and he wasn’t one of those grown ups who doesn’t have any sweets or candy around.
Although I have only had good lovers and wonderful men in my bed, he was beyond a shadow of a doubt the best lover I ever had.
I could turn my whole box of kinks upside down, and he’d still know what I was hiding.
It was magnificent.

So! 
Then why on earth do I find myself romanticizing someone – two men actually, if I include the one I met last year – Why do I romanticize them when what I had with them counts as “almost nothing” to “absolutely nothing”?
Nothing but “a moment”, where we both felt it.
But moments don’t count. Not compared to living out your whole box of kinks.

Is this some Victorian romantic idea of favoring men I have done “nothing” with, over the one I was well on my way of doing “everything” with?
But fortunately, I cracked the code, and that wasn’t it.
It had nothing to do with morals of any kind.

You see, here’s the thing;
With Mr.Big, the foundation of what he offered was very much in the 3D. The material world. His wealth and demanding nature had earned him the seclusion of a luxurious condo, all to himself.
Now he was the one who got that somehow accepted in his marriage, which is quite the feat, but there was no denying that I felt so safe and taken care of, because he was first and foremost taking really good care of himself.

Mr.Big was also a man I could trust with the vulnerability of my naked body, and of being there alone in his apartment. It’s not like anyone with real estate can get into my pants, far from.
But the truth of the matter is still, that Mr.Big’s appeal, and the appeal of what he offered me, was largely a financial matter.
Privacy is as expensive as it is hot.

So if that is our baseline here;
Then what is Angel Love?
And why does it explain why I’m suddenly thinking about that man from the past?

Angel Love is the name I have given to the silence surrounding both of these men. The peace, the calm, the zone of non-interference they carry around themselves.
It’s an aura where nothing is said, because there is nothing to say. Everything they want you to know, vibrates in their field.
Which is, why are we not surprised, extremely little.

These men keep their energy fields clean, and you get the feeling they’re very intentional about it. And aware most people are too preoccupied with themselves to even notice.
That it’s a matter of principle.

They go out the door with clean, unreadable auras.

What follows is that they are no longer reliant on anything else. Not on the clothes they wear, not on the environment they’re in, not on the people who interact with them, not on owning a penthouse and being the only one with the frontdoor key, and not even on fulfilling sexual desires.
They’re energetically sovereign, nothing can touch them. Which naturally invokes the response in us, the normal people, to desperately want to touch them.

We want to pierce through that magnetic field that is their aura and see what happens. Will our hand slip into another universe?
We want to touch their skin; Is it warm like ours? Or cool, or even slightly cold as if they’re not from here? But from heaven.

It is their ethereal nature that makes them so alluring.
Not just to be with them, and to make sweet angel love, but you want to be them.
You want to be saved from this messy entanglement of being human, and float through it, just like them.

Untouchable.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Girl wants her MTV | year 1991 behind the scenes

Published on by LS Harteveld

There was an old forgotten dream, to move to London and become a VJ, which is a video discjockey, the one announcing videos and interviewing bands, at MTV or other music channels.

Contrary to DJs who worked live on air, but from the quiet of their radio studio, VJs were part of television culture.

Equal to anchors from regular channels, they were selected on their ability to perform in front of a camera, interact with guests, and to be bold and creative in particular when on location.

The more you were allowed to go out, and the bigger the stars you were to interview;
The higher your rogue-status needed to be.

I can’t imagine I thought that far ahead though. I was not actually interested in interviewing anybody, nor in being a celebrity myself. But I dreamed of going for daily runs in Hyde Park, and it was the single reason I actually ran for a brief year or so.

I wanted my life to be interesting and to be saved from the corporate bubble that was about to swallow me whole.

MTV never amounted to anything though, but luckily I was still spared. In a far less interesting but also less risky way, and I rarely thought back to this strange phase in my life.
Until now.

Because it is the perfect cover for this timeline project where I pretend it’s 35 years ago.
This angle gives Lauren 1991 something to aim for, and also solves a hell of a pesky planning problem which keeps resurfacing:
When to make content for my YouTube channels?!

Just the pop-culture related series, which are my favorite ones, cost 5 hours per week.

As much as I want to keep this modern-day, YouTube related stuff on my weekdays/ workhours/ 2026 timeline;
It just doesn’t fit!

But if Lauren 1991 would have a dream to be a VJ?
Then she could spend her Sundays working for a local tv station.

Bingo.


~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below, and adjusted to the format it will have in 2026..

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara;
The series Harteveld 2026*
And these Behind the Scenes of my 1991 timeline.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About: the 1991 project

For an indefinite time, I will be moving to the, I assume fictional, timeline of (re-)living 35 years ago.
Making the current year 1991, and I’m switching to a new shorter format:
The number of characters will be my fictional age on this timeline x 100.
This means until summer 1991 (2026), they will be 1800 characters, representing 18 years old.
And after that 1900 characters.

This project has a predecessor, where I wrote as if I was in 1994 – 2000;
But this was mostly a literary (diary) undertaking.
I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

My 8 year goals are:
📵 to live a 20th Century life
🎸 to be a 20th century-inspired Rock journalist.
But on the current timeline.
So this means I make money creating content and speaking about rock music and 20th century things 
📚 publish Lauren Harteveld work 2010-2025
📢 to make the Lauren Harteveld legacy visible

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Categories BTS

Master of the Field

Published on by LS Harteveld
Last month, I had a call with my creativity coach Sara
The email sent before our call was: Marble Track of Love
This new series “The Day After” is written in its aftermath.

 

Master of The Field

The biggest takeaway from our call was more finetuning around why my friendships with women have been so prone to difficulty, compared to my male friends with whom friendships are fairly uncomplicated.
Huge disclaimer!
This is taking into account 2000 years of male privilege to the best of my ability.
Which by definition, will never be enough.

You cannot expect the gender that did not even have voting rights until the 20th century, and their father or husband having to sign for their creditcard just a few decades ago, to be at the same level of Let’s Lay Back And Have An Existential Discussion About The Nature Of The Universe.
That’s privilege.
That’s not having to constantly be on the lookout for predators.
That’s not having your body policed, nor your morals scrutinized. That’s you just letting it hang and having another beer because you have been safe your whole life, because patriarchy has been doing the heavy lifting for you.

I try to take that into account when writing this, and at the same time I know it will never be enough. There is a privilege and a safety gap between my female friends and my male friends, that cannot be overstated.

So there’s all that, and at the same time I’m still not skilled at adjusting my expectations to this. I’m pretty far with raising the bar for potential lovers, meaning that just being a man or even a man I’m in love with, will never be enough for a relationship – real effort needs to be made – but I’m not being supportive towards my female friends, to the level that I would want.
I feel we’re still mostly on our own, battling the consequence of being a woman.

Over the last few years, I’ve said goodbye to all who I could not be a friends with. So the ones who are still my friend, have really come forth and I to them.
For lack of a less dramatic way to put it, we chose each other.
I don’t want to f* it up.
And yet, I find myself still being frustrated that it’s not going as smoothly as with men. 

So that was the first takeaway, that my friendships with women will always stay a work-in-progress. From my side and theirs. And that cognitively understanding where the difference between men and women stems from, has done too little in dealing with my expectations.
I really want to be a better friend to them.

But the second takeaway came from dissecting these so-very-hailed relationships with men. Because initially I thought, and I feel almost silly and definitely self-centered thinking this, I thought they all protected me like knights in shining armor, right.
That because of our difference in gender, they shielded me from harm. And I felt that. And it was a safety no female friend has ever given me.
But I was wrong;
They are not shielding me,  that’s not what they’re doing. Occasionally they might, for sure, but that’s not the foundational safety I feel.
What makes me feel safe, is that they’re shielding, protecting, and walling off, themselves.

It are their own impeccable boundaries, that make me feel safe. 
The exact same boundaries we only accept from men, although fortunately more and more women do adopt them.

An example sprung to mind about a business women I overheard having a conversation on the train. It was a call to the company where she worked, and it was about a visit to a client.
She was discreet and disclosed no information, but it was clear she wanted to report and go home, so she didn’t have to remember anything and could start fresh tomorrow.

The conversation was about projects that cost tens of millions of euros, and which option the client had chosen.

The person on the other end received the information and their way of rounding off the conversation must have suggested that they would pick up the topic tomorrow, at which the business women intervened.
“I just told you,” she said. Repeating the option the client had chosen, identified by the number of millions the deal would be.
She did not hang up the phone until the person on the other end understood  perfectly well that this 5 minute phone call from the train was all she was going to spend discussing a deal of millions of euros.
Impeccable boundaries.

In the call with Sara, this example came up and I started realizing that what makes me feel safe but also (strangely) seen, is when they create that safety for themselves. And they see themselves. I feel taken seriously, when they take themselves seriously. It’s a strange and in a way pretty f*-ed up projection (because on territory that is clearly none of my business), but that’s how it works.

The basics of my flawless friendships was not in them treating me right;
It was in them treating themselves right.

After this I chose to zoom in even further, to the men who had been my lovers, and this new era of my life, where I know I will never get the affairs or flings or relationships I once had. My boundaries are now up to the level of spending 5 minutes on 8 figure deals, if there would be an equivalent for that in love.
Nothing that happened in my love life, ever, would have happened under my New Law. Yet my history provides interesting examples of feeling completely safe and taken care of, under circumstances/ with men that provided no acknowledgement and boundaries in the traditional sense.
My most exquisite sexual experiences, were under conditions any woman looking for red flags would have dismissed.

“I really wonder how that worked,” I said to Sara.

The question was answered within the call, but it wasn’t until later that I was able to come up with the right analogy to illustrate it.
This is an analogy of a gym class, also called physical exercise class (PE class).
It answers the question why men who offered none of the traditional signs of commitment, had made me feel safe enough to have sex.

The gym class analogy goes as follows;
Regardless of the type of sports we’d do that class, our field or exercise terrain would always be marked by a set of bright orange pawns.
Very often the teacher would not carry any specific equipment, just the pawns. Sometimes there would already be other materials on the field, such as balls or bats or gloves, but other times it was just the pawns.
Which was not a good sign because then we’d have to do a lot of running and moving around. The more official the game of sports we’d be doing, the less moving around would be required.

But what I’ve realized these lovers did, in situations that would look unsafe or casual on paper, is that they behaved exactly like the PE teacher, with regard to three things.

First, they were confident and in control.
It was clear that they were in charge, first and foremost of themselves.
They had a firm stance, did not fiddle their hands, and showed no signs of insecurity. They made no sudden movements nor were they overly familiar, or talkative. They just held their ground, and let you go through your emotions without much interference.

Second, they were clear about what we were there to do. What the trajectory was, so to speak. They were, again, unmoved by whether you were going to finish or to what base you were gonna go today.
Their job was simply to offer the game, and to make sure everybody played by the rules.

And third, they marked the field. They decided on the boundaries of our playing field, physically, but also time-wise. And if there was more than one game, they were the ones switching it up.
This could be because of several reasons, but it was always their call.

When students withdrew, they would vary how they responded, depending on the student. But they knew exactly what was going on, nothing went unnoticed under their watchful eye.

In the same way, my best lovers placed their pawns at exactly the right spots. They carved with surgical precision, the lines we would never cross.
They told me the rules, but more than that, they embodied them.

It was an invitation to play, a game where no one could really win.
But more importantly;
No one would ever lose.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these The Day After posts, my letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Divine love, but on earth | Harteveld 2026*

Published on by LS Harteveld

Initially, I thought it was just me having higher standards now.
And they were installed intentionally, so I thought this was a New Me or something.

Until I realized this is who I have been all along.

The discovery started when I tried to specify (don’t freak out!) where I want to reincarnate or dwell;
A place (a realm, most likely) where I only love.
I don’t want to do anything else.

Only to conclude that, of course, this meant my first job was to create a life of love here on earth, as an experiment but also because I suspect they don’t hand out passes to The Realms of Infinite Love like peanuts.
I will have to build a case for myself, to prove I am ready.
A case built on what I did with my current life.

I will live a life of love, now.

And in my case I know for a fact this is unconditional, divine, romantic love.
This is a proven spiritual path, I didn’t make it up. Just that it’s not really practiced in the west, although Christianity also has elements of it.

Romantic divine love itself, is the complete path. It is not a first act in something that should lead to sex or a relationship, although both could happen.
It’s about the devotion itself.
And that is what I have always wanted, ever since my first idol when I was 12.

If they don’t have realms with unconditional divine romantic love in the afterlife, then I’m willing to go general. But here on earth I know that romance is the strongest spiritual lead.
This devotion has been there my whole life just that I forgot about it. Or chose to ignore it when it proved to be incredibly impractical.
Creating intense drama, because I also wanted other things from them.

I decided to get practical, starting with no longer having my heart broken.
Romantic divine love had to go.
This new phase in my life required strategy. Which in turn, and after many years, I was able to turn into standards.
I’ll keep an eye on them, if they let the right man/men through effortlessly.
But their protective function has already proven to be reliable.

This means I can safely return to romantic love as it once came natural to me.
As devotion.
.
.~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Harteveld 2026*
Are 2200 characters, or less.
The series started in 2025, inspired by the book Fretz 2025 by Johan Fretz and asterisk from the movie Thunderbolts*

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 project.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

This time really, really | year 1991 behind the scenes

Published on by LS Harteveld

When I say “This time really, really”, what I mean is;
I am going to live in 1991, as I intended to all along!
Because, well firstly because I said I would, of course.

There’s no point in deciding your new project, and basically future as an artist, is that you will live on different timelines, only to then not execute.
So that’s the biggest reason to get with the program and to “Let’s fucking go”, to use what was probably the catch phrase of 2025. (and not very 1990 or 1991)

But the other reason I want to get serious with this, is because I know very well how to do it. Had I chosen “Learn to paint like Renoir” as my artistic goal, I would have had all sorts of reasons to be disheartened.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I chose: “I am going to live as if it is 35 years ago.”
Creating, or recreating, my own history. I’m overwriting it.

I’m also overwriting my current 2026 timeline as well, which is equally interesting.
What happens, if you don’t commit to the timeline everybody around you is on? 

I’m not a purist, most of my diaries are still dated 2026, and I also use modern media, like Google maps on my phone, and this blog.

And yet, I have a good idea on how to still create this new timeline.
I really want to do it despite me having been super flakey with it in the past.
I know how it’s done, the principles are clear.

They have just been really hard to execute because I’m used to using social media when I am on my computer, and to using YouTube like a permanent drip, when I do anything else.
It’s always playing in the background.

All moments which would have been silent, in 1991.
Maybe just a radio playing.

Therefor the 1991 rules will be:
Keeping my phone off, until I’m behind my desk.
News & Social media once a day.
YouTube only on traditional tv moments.

Really.


~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below, and adjusted to the format it will have in 2026..

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara;
The series Harteveld 2026*
And these Behind the Scenes of my 1991 timeline.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About: the 1991 project

For an indefinite time, I will be moving to the, I assume fictional, timeline of (re-)living 35 years ago.
Making the current year 1991, and I’m switching to a new shorter format:
The number of characters will be my fictional age on this timeline x 100.
This means until summer 1991 (2026), they will be 1800 characters, representing 18 years old.
And after that 1900 characters.

This project has a predecessor, where I wrote as if I was in 1994 – 2000;
But this was mostly a literary (diary) undertaking.
I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

My 8 year goals are:
📵 to live a 20th Century life
🎸 to be a 20th century-inspired Rock journalist.
But on the current timeline.
So this means I make money creating content and speaking about rock music and 20th century things 
📚 publish Lauren Harteveld work 2010-2025
📢 to make the Lauren Harteveld legacy visible

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Categories BTS

Marble Track of Love

Published on by LS Harteveld
This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.
Dear Sara,
.

I remember marble tracks as being  a simple wooden toy, where you drop the marble on the top track, and watch it rolling down over de diagonal slide to the right, drop to the next tier, and so on.
Until it comes out at the bottom , over a melodious staircase that makes music from the marble running over it.

But I just Googled these marble tracks, and they have gone totally next level!

No longer a uniform toy, the tracks are now built similarly to Lego. And there are boxes with sets for tracks ranging from globe-like spheres to colorful tracks connecting multiple tower constructions.

So my vision of a marble track symbolizing my love life, but one with gates that lock or open between different layers, is actually less fictional now than it was based on the toy from my youth.
That’s what I’ve been up to!
I have translated lessons from my love life, into a system. And it is giving me wings in every other area as well. Because you could build a track for each and everyone of them.

The idea is that the tracks, not you, select potential suitors.
And to not get emotionally invested until a marble falls through, into your bed in this case.

In a way, I’ve always had a marble track in place, but it was broader than what I’m aiming for now.
But it did work.
For instance, I have never encountered bad lovers, EVER. Our arrangements have been flawed in more ways than I can count, and I have worked around tough character traits  (both theirs and mine!!) at a level I would never have managed if sex had not been the reward.
But I never had someone in my bed who was not a wonderful lover.

As sort of a mid-text PS: I do want to add that I need to be madly in love with a man, right? I mean, you could argue that the track is nothing more than me learning not to engage with people I am not madly in love with.
That I take myself through that track time and time again, knocking into gates that stay closed because I know damn well I m not in love.

But for this blogpost, I’m going to leave that part out, because it’s just not very interesting. And frankly, it’s also not what has given me this feeling of “Cool I hacked this!”
You don’t think “Cool! I hacked this!” when you decide not to engage unless deeply in love. That is not actionable enough.

But back to this marble track, which has always been there.
But now, in the 2.0 2.6 version, I no longer feel responsible for who wants to go into the maze, nor for what they encounter there.
In particular not what they encounter inside themselves. I no longer perform emotional labor and consider it part of a broader feminist package against patriarchy.

And next to me not smoothing out any hurdles, the tracks are also about things I need to have an amazing experience.
Things like: Effort, initiative, holding space for me, attunement, and focus. It is tempting to add “clear communication”, but I really should not because I like the mystery of things being done without words.

The marble track should run in a way that it blocks anyone who will not be able to meet my new standards. 
For both our safety, really. But mostly, for my mental peace and quiet. 

The marble track has been working like a charm. And yes, it is keeping everyone out, which does not sound like much of a result.
But it is preventing me from performing emotional labor. Something I admit still having been caught up in, as recently as last year.

Meanwhile, I’ve made several attempts estimating which men from my past would have been in my life, if my boundaries had always been this strong, my standards this high.
I’ve identified four!

Two lovers would have been in my life, in much the same way as they have been. One from when I was very young, and my last lover as well. So the first and the last, really. Unchanged. If I had to psychologize it I would say those connections were so destined, they would not have been changed by any circumstance. Much less by me applying the principles of a kid’s toy.

With the majority of the men who have been in my life, there is of course really no telling if we would have done better, if I had had better standards. For many men it would have offered a challenge they’d have loved to live up to.
I can look back and think they would not have passed, but the truth is I have no idea how they would have responded. Many of them may have upped their game and could still have been in my life. And bed.

But the most interesting reflections were the ones immediately offering an entirely different picture!
A better one.
And although I said I would leave that aspect out – Yes, these were in fact men I was deeply in love with.

One was someone who broke up with me, in an incredibly messy and fucked up way. And yet I can now see that if he had had to work for my attention, he would have fought for me like a lion.
In hindsight I think he was someone who operated on the IKEA principle: The more effort he would have to put in to get it all up and running, the more attached he would be.
Had I not been the one working my ass off, he would have, and our relationship would have been entirely different.

And the final man with whom I know things would have been so much better, was someone with whom I was very much in love, but I rejected him because I was already involved. And also because my feelings for him scared me. He did not offer any stability or safety for me to hold on to.
And yet?
His energy was so clear, the connection so real;
He offered me the purest relationship gold but from a planet I had never been to. I did not recognize it.

Maybe me being so enthusiastic about the marble track never had anything to do with keeping the men out that were not putting in the work.

Maybe the reason I am so incredibly happy with this find is that I know the track will let the right one through.
Immediately.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for these letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 diary.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Tarot Thread | Harteveld 2026*

Published on by LS Harteveld

“What message for my readers?”

The past few weeks I have integrated receiving messages through reading Tarot cards.
It brings me into the present moment, it grounds me (threads me) into reality. 

My readings are private – and my interpretations deeply personal – but I do have one deck which came to me in an unexpected way. Having been used by someone else.
I call it The Tarot Of The World, and consult it to tell me what I should know about what is coming.

Today, I consulted this deck for the first time, to do a reading for someone else:
You.

After selecting I turned the three cards, and what immediately stood out was the middle one: The Tower.
Considered the worst card in Tarot, and this is precisely the reason I don’t do readings last thing before bed!
This Tower is the apocalyptic center of our reading.

However, it is flanked by two cards of serenity and peace:
The Ace of Pentacles, depicting a large spirit hand holding a big golden coin;
And the Two of Cups, with two young people, both wearing a garland crown on their head, facing each other and respectfully raising their glass.

The numbers represented on the cards are:
1 – 16 – 2
16 is the number on The Tower, so this could indicate something happening on either the 16th of February or January.
I am doing this reading on the 14th of January, like I always do days prior to posting!
Only to realize now that, of course, this reading needs to go out today.

Messages for other people are not meant to be contained in my WordPress for 4 days.

I think the 16 goes with February (the “2” on the third card) and not with “1” (the Ace of the first card) but I can’t be sure.

So the way I read it is in chronological form:
We are currently in the Ace of Pentacles phase. Our work here is to stay “in spirit”, to keep a clear head, and to take care of our earthly possessions.

Then a clash or chaos of some sort will happen. Whether collectively or individually.

And afterwards we will find ourselves cherishing a renewed connection, in particular with a partner or new person in our lives.

The winged lion’s head and Aesculapius’ staff above the couple, indicating health, protection;
And divine covenant.

.
.~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Harteveld 2026*
Are 2200 characters, or less.
The series started in 2025, inspired by the book Fretz 2025 by Johan Fretz and asterisk from the movie Thunderbolts*

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 project.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

The Year MCMXCI a.D. | year 1991 behind the scenes

Published on by LS Harteveld

It was the year we remembered having been taught Roman numbers, but not recalling enough to decipher Enigma’s album called “MCMXC”, which simply means 1990, the year of its release, and the year when I started this fictional timeline last year.

This is the breakdown of those numbers:
M 1000
CM 900 (1000 minus one tenth)
CX 90 (100 minus one tenth)

Because I’m now in 1991, instead of 1990, I added a Roman “I”, meaning 1.

So welcome to this new year 1991 Anno Domini, Latin for “in the year of the Lord”.

Where an 18 year old Lauren lives her new virgin timeline, breaking with a previous iteration of this project where she had an affair with Bear.

In this new timeline, Lauren has chosen to remain a virgin instead.
She did meet up with Bear 13 months ago in December 1989.
And as far as casual lovers would go, he would have been a great one for her first time sex, but she changed her mind.
And she declined the offer she had largely invented herself.

She simply changed her mind.
Just a good first time sex was no longer going to cut it.
She wanted more.

And now, January 1991, she still stands by that decision, even though it has not been an easy year for her. It’s fair to say not a day has gone by without her reviewing her decision and wondering if it had been worth it.
And if there is a deadline when she will lower her standards.

The answers however, are always the same.

Yes, it was worth it.
No, there is no deadline on which she will lower her standards.

But she has a copy of the 1990 Enigma cd and has realized this is what came instead:
A lover in the form of an all-male Gregorian choir.

She can even hear the electric guitar, because at heart she is still a hard rock fan.

“The principles of lust
Are burned in your mind
Do what you want
Do it until you find
Love.”

 ~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below, and adjusted to the format it will have in 2026..

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara;
The series Harteveld 2026*
And these Behind the Scenes of my 1990 timeline.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About: the 1991 project

For an indefinite time, I will be moving to the, I assume fictional, timeline of (re-)living 35 years ago.
Making the current year 1991, and I’m switching to a new shorter format:
The number of characters will be my fictional age on this timeline x 100.
This means until summer 1991 (2026), they will be 1800 characters, representing 18 years old.
And after that 1900 characters.

This project has a predecessor, where I wrote as if I was in 1994 – 2000;
But this was mostly a literary (diary) undertaking.
I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

My 8 year goals are:
📵 to live a 20th Century life
🎸 to be a 20th century-inspired Rock journalist.
But on the current timeline.
So this means I make money creating content and speaking about rock music and 20th century things 
📚 publish Lauren Harteveld work 2010-2025
📢 to make the Lauren Harteveld legacy visible

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Categories BTS

Dark Queen | Harteveld 2026*

Published on by LS Harteveld

“It’s only getting worse.”
This could have been my conclusion, but I’m choosing for:
“Why does this still surprise me?”
Over the past few years all earthly problems of health and career have been solved in satisfactory ways, meaning it is clear why the old situation was a problem, what the cause was, what the solution.
And yet on a deeper level, nothing changed.

Now that all outer circumstances are solved, and the inner does not respond, it is like the purity of winter, the silence of a snow covered night.
There is no one here.

In the morning the wheels of the world will start moving, there will be interactions, relationships, a full calendar, and sooner rather than later, I will retreat and seal the gate.
Happy, public duties have ended.

Thankfully, there are people in my life with whom I have a strong connection and do not have to perform social superficiality and do not have a professional role either.
But if I look back at how easy interaction used to be, and how fluent one event would stretch into another (“Want to go for a drink?” “Would you like to come over for dinner?”) it is clear my life has changed so much.
And it is impossible to go back.

The idea of regularly sharing meals, or sharing my bed at night is unbearable.

With all earthly matters attended to, I want 2026 to be the year I find back what was lost.

Can I find back my lust for life, and stop being the queen of the underworld?
At least when I’m with a friend;
At least when I write;
At least when I look inward;
Can the frozen ground thaw and a new garden grow?

I think it is feasible, now that I know what I’m aiming for.
And that it will be restored through, by, or in collaboration with one or two lovers.
The process of melting the ice around my heart and open it.

Yes, my prediction is it will be the warmth of my love life that will save me. And after that I will be able to bring my softness into other areas as well.
Because I never intended to become this new version of me. It was necessary but should have never become more than a means to an end.

2026 Should be on focusing on this end; On the woman whose life was on the line when I chose to rise into the Queen of Darkness.

Me.

.
.~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Harteveld 2026*
Are 2200 characters, or less.
The series started in 2025, inspired by the book Fretz 2025 by Johan Fretz and asterisk from the movie Thunderbolts*

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2026* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 1991 project.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

A Timeline… Disappeared? | Longread | year 1990 behind the scenes

Published on by LS Harteveld

One area in my life effected positively by my time-traveling projects, are my  self-made postcards for New Year.

I have always made them myself but didn’t really land on a formula.
They varied from a sonnet, to a hand-drawn comic, to two of them being from the pond in my backyard in the years I rented a family home.
One from an incredibly large frog, unexpectedly appearing in spring and sitting there like he owned the place. Which he probably did.
And the year after I photographed the pond’s waterlilies.
The house also had a shed with a stone marten, but they never made it to the card because I never saw it. Even if I had it would have been too quick to make a photo.

But I recognize stone marten smell ever since.
It’s the smell of carnivore poo, you can also smell it in the predator enclosure in the zoo.

So over the course of my life making New Year cards was a recurring theme. Yet I was aware that it had started to slip.
Inspiration was running low, and although I didn’t realize it, it was at the point where it would either fall by the wayside entirely;
Or be upleveled into something I could commit to. 

And then, a couple of years into my first timeline project which I did from 2019 to early 2025;
A couple of years in, I suddenly saw the light.

I would make a card, explaining my timeline project, and wishing everybody a happy 1998.
I repeated it the following years as well (1999, 2000), and assumed I would keep this going forever.
Until early 2025 when I noticed the timeline project in its current form, was no longer alive.
By now it was in the year 2000 and both my love life as well as my love for the project, had been cold for over a year.
The timeline, was dying.
If I wanted the fate of my love life (which was supposed to be the star of this whole project. Kind of like the frog!) to be different, something needed to change.

So I picked up an old timeline. Imagine a Star Wars scene where they find old spaceships, crashed into the ground a long time ago, during wars long forgotten.
That’s how I found this timeline.

Because I had already been toying around with this one, on and off. It was linked to the idea of living in 1988 or 1989.

Visual for this paragraph:
A foggy rain forest and a woman investigating a site with crashed spaceships, overgrown with forest vegetation.
She wonders if she’s attracted to the idea that the spaceship era might revive?
Or to the idea that it will not? And that this remote site with its abandoned relics will be hers alone.
That’s how I scavenged my old timeline projects, wondering if I should pick them up.

I had written about those experiments (living or drawing inspiration from 1988/1989) before, but had never pushed through.
Therefor, they had never become a “real” timeline. Nor did any of the things I had connected to it taken root or were any of its goals achieved.

But this year (2025), with my initial timeline project flatlining in the year 2000, I decided to give this other 90-ish scenario a serious go.

And although definitely not perfect, I could feel this was the breath of fresh air I needed, as well as what the reboot the whole (let’s be honest: WEIRD) idea of doing a time travel project needed.
That the first timeline project, 1994-2000 (2019-2025) had been a draft version, my early work, perhaps just an experiment.
And that now, with the new 1990-ish timeline, I would get serious.

So this December, creating my new cards to wish everybody a happy New Year, I did not continue on the previous storyline (where the new year would have been 2001), but I explained I had opened a New Timeline.
And wished everybody a happy 1991.

I used a photo from myself from 1990, but it was more like “THE photo” (not “a” photo) because it turned out, I only had one set of photos from 1990.
As if the first time around, I had left the thinnest trail of myself, so I could relive it again. There was an abundance of concert clippings though, and other souvenirs and keepsakes. But it was in particular the music clippings that interested me.
Apparently I had been trying to expand my horizon from the bands I loved and adored, to a more broader palette of rock and metal.

You could say I was dipping my toes in the water of becoming a rock journalist.
A dream that came back to me this year, even before I found the clippings. I now have a small collection of reference works from the 70s and 80s, that would have kickstarted my career as a rock journalist in 1990.

Over the course of 2025 this new 1990 timeline had naturally started taking shape already.
And finding the gap in my 1990 photo album reinforced this idea, this was indeed where it was supposed to land.
There was space here, to live it a second time.

So I created the cards, ordered them, wrote them, and was already starting to feel really good about how smooth it had all gone this year, and how ahead of the game I was!
With a little luck some people would even have it before Christmas, and I was confident everybody would have it before the New Year.

On another positive note there had not been major changes in the list of addressees either. Just a few minor ones, which were related to professional choices, situational changes and I sent a few extra cards to people with whom I had reconnected this year. 
A drama-free year, without any breakups.

Here I was, at the post office, thinking how fortunate I had been, when I discovered the stack of mail had caught some unexpected, but extremely minor, water damage.
It had silently wiped out every letter it could get its slippery hands on, and I discovered the few single drops had not come alone. Multiple envelopes were damaged, although miraculously none of the essential part of addresses (which would have required my address book) had been affected.
Everything that had been smudged, I could easily redo.

And I had stickers on me so I could fix up the envelopes before posting them.

So there they went: A few of them a bit battered, but most of them fortunately still in their original pristine condition.
Except now of course I knew how fragile both their good looks as well as their addresses were…

They could all be taken out and disappear forever.

This year’s events around this card, activating this 35 year old timeline, confirmed what the silent death of the year 2000 had already proven;
Timelines can be created in the blink of an eye, but they’re volatile, unpredictable and can disappear without anyone noticing..

Keeping your timeline alive will require focus, effort and willpower.
And possibly, stickers.

 ~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below..

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara;
The series Harteveld 2025*
And these Behind the Scenes of my 1990 timeline.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About: the 1990 project

For an indefinite time, I will be moving to the, I assume fictional, timeline of (re-)living 35 years ago.
Making the current year 1990.
This project has a predecessor, where I wrote as if I was in 1994 – 2000;
But this was mostly a literary (diary) undertaking.

I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

My 8 year goals are:
📵 to live a 20th Century life
🎸 to be a 20th century-inspired Rock journalist.
But on the current timeline.
So this means I make money creating content and speaking about rock music and 20th century things 
📚 publish Lauren Harteveld work 2010-2025
📢 to make the Lauren Harteveld legacy visible

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Categories BTS