How I became obsessed with Celtic music:

It all started with Enya. Mom and I would listen to her in the car on long drives to my aunt's or my grandma's. or maybe it was the random Celtic music radio station we found between Coldwater and Muskegon, Michigan before it faded out to static. We'd listen to it while driving north on highway 69 to highway 96. The sun was always setting, fading into darkness as wove through the rolling hills covered in pine. It was narrated by a woman named Fiona. I loved how she said her name: "Fee-yoohh-nah." Her accent in general was lovely. Celtic music makes me feel in touch with my roots. My family has been in America since the 1600s or 1700s. Meaning We were about 5 types of European ancestry and about as American as it comes. But my last name was Irish. And I'd been to Ireland. So I felt more connected to that than any other white Europeans nations my ancestors tramped through. I liked to imagine them, living in the green hills of Ireland, tending sheep and being caught up in other romantic stories. In reality, they might have been drunks, or pious, certainly racist at one point in history or another. my ancestors certainly wouldn't like me the way Mulan's ghost-like ones did. Other than my name, my love of potatoes in all shapes and forms, and maybe my alight abundance of knowledge on Celtic history I've done through school and on my own, I'm not very Irish. Some people know second languages, or still perform customs their great grandparents did. Maybe they still carry a name from their ancestor or have family back in the country they're from. I think there's still something tying us all to our roots which had woven through history to bring us to where we are today. I also think it's important not to lose that. So I have Celtic music, two trips to Ireland, and my family crest. And that's good enough for now.