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.
On the way home from Girl Scouts last night my first grader and I had a chat about "the inner critic." 
Last week, my daughter and I lay together and wrote the last sentence of a sacred chapter in my mothering story. Without any sense of occasion, I nursed her to sleep for the very last time. 
What if every weekend was a three day weekend? Sounds like an ideal life, right?
From my experience, that isn't necessarily true.
There are million reasons that an entrepreneur stays up too late. At least 99 of those are actually related to doing the real work that brings in business and enables you to serve more people and make the world a better place.
Once upon a time, there was a woman, a woman who was also a writer and a business owner and a healer and a mother and wife.
Some stories become so well lived that forget that how you got there is a story worth telling. That is how I feel about my relationship with my mentor and teacher, 
Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.”
“I don't want to eke out my life like a resource in short supply. The only selfish life is a timid one. To hold back, to withdraw, to keep the best in reserve, both overvalues the self, and undervalues what the self is.” 
My eyes were bright this morning. Something more energizing than coffee was doing its work and I felt fully present in the circle. I refused to give in to the fatigue that nips constantly at my heels. These chances to be a sovereign being, responsible for myself alone, supporting this group as a peer and a student are rarest gems to me and I wasn’t going to squander a moment.
Finally, at the end of this day, however, the sleepiness drags at my eyes and my fingers and I cannot begin to do the experience any justice.
It’s time for “class.” At home, that’s all that needs to be said about mama’s quarterly disappearing acts. 
We didn’t quite make it a year between visits to the walk-in emergency clinic. There are three things I have learned from the early morning trip to have two-year-old fingers checked out after a door slamming incident:
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.
This morning as I rushed from room to room gathering necessary clothes and snacks and computer accessories and toys, it occurred to me:
Writing a story a day is a mad, marvelous mission. Time constraints and the very real limitations on creative energies are valid concerns that might make you quit before you begin. 
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”
“A small, redheaded girl from Centerville was a crowd favorite.”