HeyJaredGood, Strong Words
"I like good, strong words that mean something." (Louisa May Alcott) A place for my writings on memory, identity, history, family, and home. My particular research focus is writer Louisa May Alcott and other historical women writers.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 4
- Latest publication
- Sep 25, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 20, 2026
Latest issues
Samodivi Energy (opens the original)
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Ireland weather, we call it in our family. This in-between time of summer and fall, T-shirt days and slipper nights. When I wake to a cold house, the windows open to the morning dew, I remember the cold mornings in the cottage on Valentia Island, the chickens scratching in the garden. I think of carrying my three-year-old on my back up the mountain on Sheep’s Head Peninsula, stopping every few feet so he could grab blackberries, the salty air brisk and fresh on my sweaty skin.<a class="image-lin
Shape-shifter (opens the original)
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I had an MRI on Friday morning.After months of back and leg pain when I walk or stand, after physical therapy with hardly any progress, I slid into a tunnel to see what’s happening in my lower lumbar and pelvis. It was the strangest spa experience. White walls, classical music playing in my headphones, a floating feeling as the table rotated, chugging and pulsing. I held so still my foot fell asleep, but it wasn’t painful. When it was over, I headed to the park with my friend and family as if no
The Alcott Almanac: July (opens the original)
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This July will be the end of a full year of writing monthly Alcott Almanac pieces, so thank you for reading along! I started last August on a whim, hoping I could stick to a monthly goal of tracking the lives of the Alcott family through each season, and I’m pretty pleased to have done it. Next month may bring a new writing idea, so stay tuned! If there’s something you’d like to hear about, let me know.A Weather Report: Louisa May Alcott, 1882My tomato plants are taller than I am at this point,
Fire and Art and Matriarchs (opens the original)
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From my bedroom window, I can see green tomatoes on the vine, soaking in the heat and humidity.The air is already hazy again. My cousins, sister, and I changed our plans. Indoor activities today.I wrote the following poem several years ago, after another summer and fall of wildfires, when I could look at the sun without squinting because it was a pale ring behind so much smoke. We had been wearing masks indoors due to a pandemic but now we were wearing masks outside. “Will we always live in a wo
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