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The Woman and Her Irishman by Guest Storyteller Brenna Layne
Over a century ago, the orphanage burned to the ground, and a chapter of my family's history went up in smoke. With the papers charred to ash, all anyone knew about Timothy Sullivan was what they could remember—that he had been allowed to keep his birth-father's name (an unusual practice at the time) and that he'd been left at the orphanage by a woman with long black hair.
Every year when St. Patrick's Day rolls around, my family retells the stories of our ancestors. Timothy's begins in fire and mystery, but it's the woman I wonder about. The suggestion in the story has always been that she wasn't Caucasian, that some Irish immigrant had taken a Native wife or lover.
Last week, the internet exploded over the release of J. K. Rowling's new series of stories set in North America and heavily featuring Native American mythology viewed through a European lens. Many First Nations people decry Rowling's cultural appropriation, while Harry Potter fans spring to her defense.
I don't know what to think. I've been reading articles about cultural appropriation and trying to understand. There is so much rhetoric on all sides. What I do understand is that stories have power. They tell us who we are, shape the way we locate ourselves in this world, pit us against each other. They bring out the best and the worst in us.
So what does it mean that part of my story is missing? Sometimes I try to imagine all the nameless women who came before me, their faces and loves and lives lost to history. My head spins, and the hugeness of not-knowing threatens to overwhelm me. How do I understand myself if I don't know where I come from?
Stories are tricky, and trickiest of all is that there comes a time when we must begin to write them for ourselves. So I pick up the threads, the floating flakes of ash borne on a century-old updraft, and set out into the wide world to discover who I am.
Brenna Layne is a writer and mother in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where she chases words, kids, critters, and sunsets.
When Elder Becomes Child by Guest Storyteller Tania Pryputniewicz
Once my father played guitar in a trio. Once he carried me on his shoulders, paired rotors of elm leaves spiraling to land in my hair. He spun with his hands the playground carousel as I gripped silver rails, metronome wand of his body reappearing each pass where I left it. I fell asleep anchored to the rhythm of his voice reading me book after book from The Hobbit to The Song of Hiawatha to The Chronicles of Narnia.
Tania Pryputniewicz, author of November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014), teaches Wheel of Archetypal Selves Tarot Writing classes and is using the Tarot cards to finish writing her second poetry manuscript about an Illinois commune she lived on as a child.
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Echo Grandma by Guest Storyteller Evelyn Asher
As my thoughts propel through barren trees, the chill of a Northern Georgia winter diminishes. My heart travels on wings of love across four states to northwest Ohio where I picture two of my granddaughters, ten year-old Nora and 8 year-old Samantha, fastening their seat belts in their dad’s dated van. Off these resilient young ladies go to their hip hop and jazz dancing lessons while their same-aged stepbrothers are scurried in another direction.
My younger son, 49, a bearded bear and a vivid storyteller, fosters fierce grandparent bonds and tends a family legacy. He remains in the frigid north to ensure he is an integral, stable part of his daughters’ lives.
“Hi, Grandma Asher.” I melt when these words greet me each time they phone.
“What are you doing this afternoon?” I ask when the girls called to thank me for coloring books. “We are going to Poppy’s. He isn’t feeling well.”
Tonight, I will craft a “C” poem on decorative paper and I will post tomorrow for weekend receipt. Enclosed will be two sheets of paper, suggested letters of the alphabet for a poem written in different script, and two self-addressed stamped envelopes. I delight in creating a collage of the girls’ poems and sweet notes that come back to me- sunshine in my mailbox.
When distance-induced heartache surfaces, I giddily send surprise packages. Sometimes I compose “fill-in-the-blank” letters and send them off - also with a SASE. I have learned to ask at the end of each letter, “What haven’t I asked you that you would like to tell me?” About my new haircut, one tells me.
At other times, my heart spills over in when I meet a young mother in the check-out line and ask how old her child is. I recently asked a mom at Michael’s if I could treat her child to something extra as I would if I my grandchildren were near. Gratefully, I had that pleasure.
Dance recitals are calendared for June. Will I be in the audience? Perhaps. Whether I make the drive or not, I will always be in my granddaughters’ balcony, cheering them on.
Through the barren trees, my echo carries. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?
Evelyn Asher is a business coach and poet who yearns to take her family on a Custom Sailing cruise.
Knowing Motherhood by Guest Storyteller Barb Buckner Suárez, #365StrongStories 56
My baby lay on my chest, warm and wet from being born just moments before. I called my parents to announce they were grandparents - again. This was their 10th, but my first. Still high on the other side of giving birth, I looked at her impossibly tiny fingernails, and dialed. My Dad picked up on the first ring shouting with joy. Mom got on next and the minute I heard her voice, I burst into tears.
“I’m so sorry!”
Concerned, she asked, “For what, honey?”
“For all the times that I said I’d be home by midnight and didn’t come home until 2 am! For all the times you must have worried. For everything!”
She chuckled, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Which only made me sob harder.
How is it that the word “mother” remains unknown, unknowable, until you are a mother yourself?
Just as my mothering journey was beginning, the veil that obscured motherhood had been pulled away. Suddenly and with great clarity, I realized that all of those times I’d been convinced my Mom was “ruining my life” were just her attempts to save me from harm. I couldn’t make sense of this at the time. The center of my universe was me.
Now, holding this completely dependent, tiny little person, I realized the enormity of it all. I had just irrevocably committed myself to doing everything possible to raise this child into adulthood with an intact and healthy spirit. What the hell was I getting myself into?
I couldn’t believe that my Mom had made this commitment six times - all without a mother of her own to call and apologize to.
Where does this determination come from? To love so fiercely that your heart catches in your throat at the thought of your baby ever getting hurt?
I don’t know the answer to these questions. But my Mom was willing to show up and answer them. I’m forever grateful that I have the opportunity to show up and answer them myself, however imperfectly.
But I admit it: I’m looking forward to receiving that call to support my own daughters when it's time for them show up and try to answer these questions on their own motherhood journeys.
Barb Buckner Suárez works with expectant couples as they are preparing to become a family. She believes that every woman should have a birth story worth telling. You can find more of her writing at www.birthhappens.com
Doubt and Annie D. by guest storyteller Suzi Banks Baum, #365StrongStories 50
I wake up almost every morning happy. I crank open my eyes to assess the weather, then turn to my prayer practice. I tug on wool socks, light a candle because Rumi says, "learn to light the candle." I close my eyes again. This seals the deal on my internal climate. I can handle calamity.
Though I have ridden out usual mothering storms and some complicated travails, today's stratospheric turmoil has rocked me. Caused solely by my college-aged son, who'd just spent 18 hours with us, who left at 7:30 AM because he wanted to get back to school to the library. Here I am, saying goodbye, again. He is not off to the military, not off to the fields. He is not off to the hunting grounds or climbing on to a horse or a camel or a tank. He is getting in to his little car and taking his clean laundry and going back to school. But my heart cracks anyway, because wherever the destination, it is away and that changes me.
So I find myself in a curiously quiet house, no alternate sound track running in another room. The girl child is off on an arctic adventure in Manhattan. After 22 years of being accompanied, I am alone. They will be back; this nest is not cleaned out and orderly after the upheaving of babies, toddlers, or teens.
But look who has moved in! Doubt, the cold sister of possibility, has already chosen her bedroom. She chimes in before it is her turn to talk. She tugs away my equanimity and questions every choice. She loves to dangle the "who do you think you are" banner across my daylight. She glories in my prolonged dithering.
Then, Annie Dillard shows up:
The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring.
There is a bootstrap and I will pull it up today. I know what it feels like to show up blind with love, daring to move forward, even when I don't want to, even when Doubt casts her pallor over my day. I have 22 years of experience showing up for two people. Some days, I did not feel like oatmeal or elastic waist jeans pulled over thick-diapered bottoms, but I got them on anyway. Oats and jeans. Doubt. Take a seat. Take a number. Get in line.
Daring and love snuck in and I have work to do.
Suzi is an artist, actress, writer, teacher, community organizer, and mom. She’s passionate about helping women find their creative voice and live focused, joy-filled lives.