Home is a Changeling Podcast

Just a reminder: first listen to or read the essays Welcome Home and Be Here Now for some context to this one!If you’d rather listen to this essay in a browser or as a podcast, 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 [email protected] a house be a member of your family?From June 2021 to July 2025, both of our families also tried not to take for granted our proximity to one another, even though my brother was sent on a few different deployments so it felt like he was only present for half that time. To be able to be together for holidays and sleepovers and summer camps and day trips to the park and the library was a godsend for all of us, especially for three little cousins, who were 4, 4, and 1.5 years old at the start, and got to grow up alongside each other for essentially half of their young lives.So when they moved away last summer, back to South Carolina, their absence has left a big hole in our lives, one that we are still processing as we begin our seventh year as Washingtonians.And that house on Geer Lane, where all kinds of memories were made? More on that in a bit.Geer Lane, located on Fidalgo Island, sits on the lands of the Samish peoples, as well as the nations of Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Semiahmoo, S’Klallam, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, Upper Skagit, and Sauk Suiattle, who inhabited these lands before white people settled here, and who still live here today.Image: The first visit back to an empty house, displeased. July 2025.Thanks for reading Home is a Changeling! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ashleighellskells.substack.com/subscribe

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 [email protected] 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