HeyJaredKaren Maisch Gray
Writer of tiny true stories & mystical musings. My stories are accompanied by original photos. They started as a way to help myself through changes in my life, but they grew & asked to be shared.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
- Audience
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- Earliest in this view
- Aug 21, 2026
Latest issues
Nightmare (opens the original)
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Well, dear readers, this one is a little different than my usual little stories. I’m not sure this will find a place in my next book. It seems so different and unsettling to me. but maybe it ought to be included too. What do you think?NightmareIt was the kind of dream where you try to wake yourself. I felt that it must be a dream and I just needed to get out of it. It was full of destruction and death. Inside the dream I felt only fear. I had to wake up! When I finally did, I was still afraid. I
Parallels (opens the original)
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ParallelsMy tiny woods is gone. In order to trim a large tree in my yard that was near it, the tree guys had to move their machinery through it. My grapevine couch and the tree branch walls and ceiling are gone. The wineberries are nearly gone. The back honeysuckle wall remains, and a very small area of brush and staghorn sumac is also intact. But it will likely never grow into a little woods again while I still live here. At first I was completely heartbroken by this. Then I suddenly remembered
Moments (opens the original)
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MomentsI. The air smelled of honeysuckle and rain. Birds were singing to me, insects were buzzing, and the wind was gently blowing. I sat in my Spot and closed my eyes. I could feel the sunlight surrounding me, and the breeze caressing me. I slowly breathed it in, held it a moment, and sent it back out into the world filled with my love.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!MD_S!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-p
House (The Search) (opens the original)
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House (The Search)The first place I remember living was a small red brick house in a yard carved into the woods. My parents brought me there as a baby. We were on a hill that seemed far removed from our nearest neighbors, though I guess it wasn’t really that far. I spent a lot of time outdoors, exploring all the delightful areas of the yard, which my dad mowed, and the tall grasses and wildflowers outside of it, which he just let grow. As I grew older, I also explored parts of the woods, often w
Rich Sweetness (opens the original)
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Rich SweetnessI was out looking at my bedraggled late-summer garden. Several of the mini melons looked ripe. I pulled at one and it let go of its vine immediately. I tried a few others, but they told me, by not letting go, they weren’t ready yet. So I took my little melon and sat on the yard swing. It was then that the lesson came through.We are like that tiny melon. The “vine” gives us all we need as we go through life. When we have grown all that we can, and become all that we are or ever will
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