For the January 2025 The State of Home: Year Three, click here. And if you’re a subscriber who joined this year, don’t forget to check out my introductory essay, Welcome Home, here. Otherwise, there’s no particular order in which these need to be read (or listened to), so go for it!
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 aellsworthkeller@gmail.com.
What is home to a monster, to anyone? There exists for each of us a geographical fulcrum, a place so saturated with memory, that within its precinct the past is always present.
—Justin Cronin, The City of Mirrors (Book 3 in The Passage Trilogy)
Happy New Year. My wish for 2026 is the same as it was for 2025: Times are weird and awful, but life is still beautiful. Find the things that make you happy and do them. Your joy will absolutely make the world better.
Image: Front door view, stunning sunset, May 2025. No filter necessary.
