HeyJaredBefore the Rough Draft
Midlife reflections about motherhood, aging, and the intersection of the personal and political. Showing you the mess before the rough draft. Digging deep and writing slow. I contain multitudes.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 2
- Latest publication
- Aug 25, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 17, 2026
Latest issues
repeating the simple fact of it (opens the original)
Read excerpt
I was teaching today when my phone started buzzing with friends telling me Dolly Parton died. Then 15 minutes later my NY Times news notification chimed in with full paragraphs already written. Students were working on an independent assignment hurriedly planning for the next day’s essay, and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to break the momentary spell of silent concentration, and I teach in a school that is so multicultural that I honestly wasn’t all that sure they would identify with her,
overdue offering (opens the original)
Read excerpt
It’s been so long since I wrote here that I had to move blindly around the Substack dashboard until I remembered how to post. This has happened to me before — a shift and a resettling and then having to find my way to the page again. Sometimes I can write as life is happening to me, and writing is how I see the path, like headlights in the dark. But other times I have to live life unexamined, and then when I feel my feet beneath me enough to look back, I take a look and write what I see. I have
Publishing over time
Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.
Recurring subjects
Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.
Audience
No verified audience measurement yet.
About this data
Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.
Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.