#there's also a bar in greenhithe along the thames called the sir john franklin that i wanna hit up lol

[shloodles]

I requested a copy of May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth from my library because its huge and expensive and they accepted it! so I've been working my way through it the past few weeks. many things about this book and these letters make me uncontrollably emotional but nothing nearly so much as harry goodsir's letters. what's really getting to me right now is harry's relationship with his aunt ann taylor on his mother's side. she knit him things, and in one of his letters where he's requesting clothing items from his family for the expedition (I believe it's to his sister) he mentions requesting to have his aunt knit the wooly things for him, since he knows the quality of her work to be better than anything he's seen in the shops in london.

I know genaology is a lot more complicated than this especially when it comes to scottish clans but I'm thinking about how I had a great grandmother who was a Taylor (my little brother was named Taylor for her). back in 2019 I was in a short summer program to study scottish literature in Edinburgh. It was the first time I had ever been out of the country for so long. when I had finished my program, I stayed a while longer and my family came up to visit me. we went to one of those tartan plaid shops (one of the nicer more legit ones but still largely for usamerican tourists like us lol) and they actually had a taylor tartan, despite it being such a small clan!! (they were so small they later merged with the camerons.) my brother and I bought matching taylor scarves...and just the other week, not at ALL knowing what I would learn that day, I was wearing mine while reading the letter where I learned about harry's aunt :')

all this to say, with each letter I read I slowly fall a little bit more in love with this darling, brilliant man, who I may in some way be a descendant of?? I think about scotland almost every day since that trip, but especially now as I learn more about harry's life. like when I was in edinburgh I had the extraordinary opportunity to visit the royal surgeons hall museum, which I LOVED. but at the time, I didn't even know Harry existed, let alone that he had been the curator there right before he left for the expedition!! If I ever get to go back I want to visit his hometown of anstruther and cry

#his mother's side were taylors so his mom and his aunt and i think he had an uncle on her side too? #also...the colors of the taylor tartan are SO beautiful?? soft sage green run through with gentle lavender. like... #anyway having big feelings and just planning a whole goodsir-centric trip to cope #there's also a bar in greenhithe along the thames called the sir john franklin that i wanna hit up lol #i also feel the need to make the disclaimer that #any connection on a deep level really does not need to have anything to do with ancestry and i'm aware of all the bullshit #this just happens to be meaningful to me personally because of my experiences briefly living in scotland and learning its history #and being a lit major and finding patterns and experiencing the beauty of connecting with the past in something as simple as a scarf #man i just care about this dead guy 😭 #personal #harry ds goodsir #may we spared to meet on earth