This essay was originally published in January 2022. Make sure you read Welcome Home to understand how we got here!

I’m resharing my earliest pieces for those who subscribed recently, and I’ve recorded a voiceover for you to listen to it through your podcast app if you’d like. To do so, click the audio voiceover (“listen to post”) above. Read this if you need instructions on how to listen to episodes on your podcast app.

If you’re reading this in your inbox, you can find a shareable, web-friendly version at ashleighellskells.substack.com, where all my other essays and podcasts live. You can request to follow me on Facebook here and Instagram here, and I’m happy to hear from you at aellsworthkeller@gmail.com.

Reflection questions/Food for thought:

* In what ways has your experience of “home” shifted since the pandemic began? In what ways has it remained the same?

* Are you living in a place you never expected to call home? How does this feel?

* Do you have strong feelings about trees? Is there a specific tree or species of tree you feel connected to, and why?

Everywhere I’ve lived, I try to learn as much as I can about the place: the people, the land, the geography, the history, the culture. Here, I’ve taken the opportunity to read books, take a class, and listen to podcasts, all centered around the Pacific Northwestern forests and their (rather recent) history. Before then, many debts are owed to those who came before, particularly the Salish, Coast Salish, Skagit, and S’Klallam peoples, who lived here before white people settled here, and who still live here today.

*Eight months as of the original publication date. I now live in Bellingham, about an hour north, and have been in Washington for 6 years.

Image: Trail and madrone trees, looking southwest from Washington Park, Anacortes, Washington, Fidalgo Island. On the left is Burrows Island, in the far back is the Olympic Peninsula, and in between is the Salish Sea/Pacific Ocean.

Get full access to Home is a Changeling at ashleighellskells.substack.com/subscribe