Listen to Urs narrate her blog here:
Answer to Question 2 of the 23 Questions. What fuels your passion for blogging so? (as asked by NIk)
Find out how you can contribute to the “23 Questions” for 2024.
Answer provided by URS
GANTOB has passed the question to “the hive” to answer. She doesn’t have the time. Or does not want to admit that she has a passion for something. I am in a position to answer. As usual, I find myself “doing my bit”.
First, I would like to mention my name. Urs. Short for Ursula. Ursula N. K______, wife of the Rev K_____ AKA The Benefaktor. Initials UNK. An abbreviation of “unknown” in some quarters. How appropriate for the GANTOBverse.
I have very much enjoyed the last few months. While The Benefaktor has been tinkering in his “Kino” as usual, I have been immersed in culture: books I had never heard of from the library or Toppings, coffee dates in galleries, and the new Willow Tea Rooms on Princes Street. I have found inspiration in the most unexpected corners.
And for the first time since the pandemic I have ventured across the border. A trip to London to view an exhibition of female photographers, followed by lunch in a French restaurant with Dot, who I had not seen for years. We were offered the special of “ors” by a rather dashing young waiter. My first thought was that The Benefaktor would not approve. But a second later my reply was “Ors? Of course”. Delicieux.
Writing makes time go by in a flash. Journal writing on train journeys. No travail in travel now. Ideas come flooding in, jotted down, with connections linking together like those videos of neurones in documentaries. I have filled two black and red notebooks already. I might follow Gillian’s example and submit some ideas to a literary journal. And there are my GANTOB pieces of course. We will see if they end up actually in print, or whether they will remain bogged down in an old school blog and my audio recordings.
After York, but before the coastal part of the route back to Edinburgh, I settle down to read a novel that I picked up in London: “HERmione” by “H.D.”. Mysterious. Myths and pseudonyms. Right up my street. H.D. for Hilda Doolittle. Not in my nature. By the time I pause to look out of the window I have missed the silhouette of Lindisfarne, the possibility of a glimpse of a puffin, the plunging cliffs and the stately homes, bridges and forests of the border country. How thoroughly modern, playing round with pronouns like that. I have to read passages a few times over. All these “Her”s. Her: the heroine. Or her: “a female person or animal previously mentioned or easily identified”.
On the topic of animals: Less “horse” (after all, I have always been told that I have a little round face). More “little bear”. Fierce, but with the edges knocked off. From the Latin. Who are they calling “less fierce”? I sharpen my claws under the little table on the seat in front, ready to disembark at Waverley Station. I will leave practising my roar until I see The Benefaktor. Unless he stays in his Kino.
Ursula – a 4th century saint from the south west of England, who lost her feast day in 1970. Best known for her 11,000 anonymous virgins/handmaidens, slaughtered by the Huns outside Cologne. Why do these things always happen to women? Removed, forgotten or unnamed. It’s really not on.
But that’s a lot of detail. What I started out to say is that writing helps me work out who I am – what is going on in my life. When I was still working, I was probably seen as the quiet one. But I was always listening, taking things in. My notepads and latterly my emails showed my “workings”. If we needed something fixed, I would work it out with paper and pen rather than pontificating at length in a meeting. What is the point of repeating what everybody else has already said, just to be heard? I think that means that I am an introvert.
So blogging helps me with “me”. But the reading and research that is required to explore an issue also helps me to explore the wider world.
Gillian – AKA GANTOB – has asked in recent posts, that we try to contribute to a “golden thread”. This is something that links our writing back to that of earlier pamphlets. Well, I have mentioned the south-west of England before, in the context of Glastonbury and Joseph of Arimathea’s miraculous hawthorn tree. But that was centuries before Saint Ursula, and I do not like repeating myself. So how about this: San Lorenzo, Kurt Vonnegut’s fictional island from “Cat’s Cradle” that Gillian wrote about in her Threads pamphlets, was in the Caribbean. I cannot see from a quick flick or a google search precisely where Vonnegut placed the island in his imagination. There may be details in the description of flights or the shipwreck that could help narrow it down: perhaps it was one of those tiny dots that prove so tricky in silhouette form on that Worldle map game. Well, Ursula’s 11,000 virgins and I know a thing about the Caribbean. Follow the line down, from Florida, through Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and you reach the Leeward Islands. And there they still are: The 90 islands and rocky outcrops that make up the Virgin Islands. They are split now into the British and US Virgin Islands, but I doubt that the martyred souls will worry about that. My namesake is honoured on the US side of the line, in an Episcopal Church. That’s my “new thing” for today.
Finally, these explorations with a pen help me understand complex issues. I have written about identity and finding oneself. This reminds me of my namesake Ursula Le Guin. No abbreviations for her. I have only read one of her books: “The Left Hand of Darkness” (1969). This was one of her first books, perhaps her most lauded, but at times controversial. I was thrilled by it, seeing beyond the science fiction tropes and made-up names. It still seems 50 years ahead of its time. It explored new territories, not of space, but sex and gender, with its ambisexual characters with names such as Estraven. Despite sounding like a female hormone, the characters are referred to in the masculine. This led to some criticism, with Le Guin reportedly “haunted and bedeviled by the matter of the pronouns”. What a pity that others could not see beyond these little words to read and debate the more interesting ideas within.
I settle down for the night. I can hear The Benefaktor shifting furniture around. I think that I will read a bit. A few more pages of HERmione by H.D. And there is my answer in a single word: Her. My. One’s own perspective on the world. That is why I blog.
Tomorrow is another day. The puzzles will refresh. I will be able to challenge myself with another country on Worldle, WhatsApping the result to my son in our daily challenge. Imagine what life would be like Interrailing to Kosovo, taking the ferry to Lebanon or, if I’m feeling adventurous, flying to Fiji. I could sing some of their local songs (though you would not be able to hear me behind a wine biscuit). Read their literature – the original, not in translation. Listen in to the local debates about the big news stories. I dream of booking a holiday if The Benefaktor can arrange travel insurance. On our return I would talk about my discoveries with the hens. Write it all down.
URS 31 March 2024
Pamphlet 22 of the #GANTOB2024 #52Pamphlets
AKA answer 2 of the 23 Questions
GANTOB blog 