Road-Tripping to the Past Without GPS

Thoughts on Geography, Memory, and Going Home Again

June has been a whirlwind of family events and milestone moments, so I'm foregoing this month's interview to share a few writing and personal updates.

Earlier this month, my oldest son graduated from high school, and my youngest graduated from elementary school. THIS was the landmark moment I conjured in my mind while going through rounds of chemo and surgeries in 2021-22, and I am BEYOND grateful to be here to witness these boys growing into such thoughtful, creative, and good humans.

In May, I had the wonderful opportunity to join a few writers for a retreat in Mendocino County. When I booked it, I had no idea that I'd spend the week before the retreat in Bellingham, where I lived with my dad during my sophomore year of high school. I hadn't been back to either place in over three decades, so it was an emotional time of facing old ghosts—some by choice, some by obligation. Both trips highlighted the interconnectedness of geography and memory.

Our writer's retreat was about 30 miles south of a small town where I spent the formative years of my childhood. I spent an afternoon traveling through my past, well at least through the winding country roads, to see a few of the addresses I called home in the five years I lived there. It'd been over three decades since I'd last visited, and I wanted to see if I could find my way around without GPS. Maybe it's the writer in me, or the Virgo, or the free spirit, but I (mostly) didn't get lost!

2025 has brought many full-circle moments. One of those was walking around my old middle school—retracing the steps I took when I was my youngest son's age. The barren halls and dry landscape were drab without the chaotic energy of children, but everything else appeared eerily similar to all those decades ago. The town itself had changed in superficial ways, but it felt surprisingly untouched by time. Even my sixth-grade portable remained on the blacktop. On the way back to the car, I crossed the field and remembered lying on my back in the grass with my class while our teacher taught us about clouds. I wrote an essay about her influence on me during a tumultuous time in my childhood. It's also about motherhood, growing up, and letting go. (excerpt below)

What a Lesson on Clouds Taught Me About Growing Up

During my years in elementary school, my parents divorced, my mother died of cancer, and my dad moved to Alaska. In a tumult of change, I sought comfort in the predictability of bell schedules and the bold Sharpie letters of my name on a tag claiming a desk and its contents — hardbound textbooks, pointy №2 pencils, an untouched rainbow of waxy crayons — just for me.

As my sixth-grade teacher described how water molecules could seemingly disappear into thin air, I don't imagine she knew the extent of my worries about home, or how much her concrete explanation of the ever-changing universe brought me comfort. Neither of us knew then that I'd channel her enthusiasm decades later as I took my own squirrelly second graders onto the field to lie on their backs and discuss whimsical puffs of floating ice crystals suspended against a bright blue sky.

You can read the rest here.

In other personal writerly news, I finally had professional author photos taken. (Until now, my "author photo" was a quick pic my old nanny took in 2018.) The shoot was on an uncharacteristically windy, overcast day in May. But considering 2025 had brought waves of emotional tumult, the weather felt appropriately moody. Thanks to very skilled local photographer legend Lisa DeNeffe, I'm happy with the photos!

What do you think?

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A book and a song (and a shoutout):

Map of a Heart (shameless self-promotion):

After signing a publishing contract a little over a year ago, it's finally time to start working toward launching my book into the world. Map of a Heart: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Finding the Way Home will release on February 17, 2026, from Vine Leaves Press. I'm equal parts excited and terrified, but I'm leaning into the excitement! In August, I'll be engaging a launch team to help me spread the word and read early copies for reviews on Goodreads, etc. If you're interested, please let me know via email or in the comments, and I'll follow up with more details. (And be filled with endless gratitude :-)

Here's a quick synopsis of the book:

Map of a Heart: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Finding the Way Home is the story of my hard-won family life upended by a sudden medical crisis. After losing my mother to cancer when I was eight and becoming estranged from my father and brother shortly afterward, I spent my childhood shuffling between my grandparents and ex-stepmother before moving out on my own at the age of sixteen. In my twenties, I met the love of my life, married him, and had a baby. Then, just weeks after our son was born, my husband collapsed on a trail in front of me and ended up comatose in the ICU, where he remained for ten days. As my in-laws filled the hospital waiting room, my lack of family brought a familiar sense of shame that only complicated my fear of enduring more loss. But, the unwavering love and support from friends—as I stayed by my husband's side with our new baby—made me realize the broken family I inherited doesn't limit the one I can create for myself.

Publishing is a cycle of hurry-up-and-wait. There's a lot that happens to get a book into the world, and I'm entering the hurry-up stage of placing companion pieces, seeking blurbs from authors I admire, and going through edits. Once that's all done, it will be time for a cover! (To authors, this feels like being a kid on Christmas morning.)

A large part of book promotion and finding readership happens at the grassroots level, beginning with the author. I will likely get a little shouty about The Book, but I promise to keep my volume at Engaging Teacher Voice rather than Asking My Kid to Get Off Screens (for the 57th time) Voice. I'll include relevant updates here as I receive them, but for the most part, I'll return to regularly scheduled programming featuring inspiring interviews, books, and music. These days, more than ever, we can all use a reminder of the good happening in our communities.

A Shoutout:

In addition to a song this month, I'd like to sing the praises of an inspiring writer whose Substack is full of tips to help other writers get to the heart of the matter on the page. Jeannine Oullette is a wealth of knowledge with a generous spirit and a seemingly endless well of creativity! Her Substack*, Writing in the Dark, is an invaluable resource to writers at all stages of their craft. She also helped organize a wonderful Substack hang at AWP, where I met so many other lovely writers who are doing really meaningful work on here!

One of Jeannine’s posts this month shares a title with my memoir (nearly) and discusses place and memory. This post resonated with me because part of my process for writing Map of a Heart was to explore the geography of my lived experiences to more fully flesh out my childhood memories. I moved so much as a kid that, depending on the stability of the adults or the length of time somewhere, some locations held more weight (or "emotional heft," as Jeannine Ouellette calls it). The constant motion can make memories a little hard to pin down, so grounding them in place was a valuable exercise.

You can find her post about maps as memory and her Substack below:

Writing Place as a Map of the Heart

*This particular post is for paid subscribers only, but I have five free one-month subscriptions to Writing in the Dark, so if you're interested, let me know in the comments.

“Paul Revere” by Noah Kahan

This song kept me company as I road-tripped through my past in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Thanks Noah, for always having just the right words.

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The Heart of the Matter:

❥ Thinking about revisiting the past? Get out old photos, visualize the places most connected to the memories, or take a virtual trip with Google Earth.

❥ Maybe it’s never too late to revisit the places that take up emotional residence in our hearts.

❥ Every once in a while, turn off GPS and see where muscle memory takes you.

❥ People we meet in all stages of growing up can leave an influence we don’t realize until years later.

❥ When poking around in the past, be prepared to find that while we grow and change, some things stay remarkably the same.

❥ When road-tripping to through time, I recommend a good playlist.

Jacque Gorelick is an essayist who writes about family, motherhood, health, and estrangement. Her debut memoir, Map of a Heart: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Finding the Way Home, is forthcoming with Vine Leaves Press (February 2026). You can find more about her work here.

Thanks so much for spending part of your day with me.

❤️ Jacque