HeyJaredLife After All
From random joy to running on empty, it’s only life after all. Essays and musings on beginnings, endings, and the shape we’re in by award-winning author Lauren Kessler.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 13
- Latest publication
- Sep 30, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 8, 2026
Latest issues
Go. Stay. Go. (opens the original)
Read excerpt
There are homebodies and wanderlusters.Homebodies rarely stray. Maybe they so much love where they live that they always want to be there. Maybe they don’t have the time. Or the money. Or the curiosity. Maybe they have obligations and responsibilities that tether them to home. Maybe they are afraid.Wanderlusters are restless. They long to explore, to experience what they don’t know, what they have not seen. They are adventurers. Maybe they are thrill-seekers. Maybe they have just not found a pla
All Hail the Preposition (opens the original)
Read excerpt
“All I know about grammar is its infinite power.”That’s Joan Didion. She nailed it. Didn’t she always?“To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.”More Joan. More brilliance.As a writer, as a reader, I am a lover of language. But I am also a grammar geek. One of my favorite parts of English class in early high school was diagramming sentences, which was not, even
The Solace of Soup (opens the original)
Read excerpt
I wrote a version of this piece five years ago. I publish it today for two reasons: I want to usher in the beginning of Soup Season. But far more importantly, I want to say that healing happens (with or without soup…but why go without?), that families knit back together, that sorrow and joy commingle, that my heart is light. And full.When my husband died, I made soup.Oh, I did other things, too:I cried.I wore his gray flannel shirt for five days (and nights).I read the tabbed pages of the last b
Good Job (opens the original)
Read excerpt
On the Ridgeline trail a few mornings ago, I was hiking an uphill stretch. Two women coming down the narrow trail were about to pass me. We all smiled. I moved to one side; they moved to the other to allow each other to pass. One of the women, thirtysomething I would guess, lost her footing, slid and skidded on gravel, but rebalanced herself, recovered, and kept walking.“Good job,” her companion said.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HIx7!
My So-Called (Dating) Life (opens the original)
Read excerpt
There was the guy who told me he could see my aura. Mine, apparently, was chartreuse. He said our energetic fields “aligned.”There was the guy who told me he was married, but his wife had dementia, so “really, it is like she’s dead.”There was the guy who bought me roses and chocolate and a bottle of good wine, then cancelled a long-planned date and disappeared. Then reappeared via social media a few months later in a far-off land, newly married. (He looked very happy. I am happy for him.)<a clas
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.