I Shine Not Burn

in search of Margaret Ellen

AP European History was a million years ago so I can’t remember whether Hume deserves this indignity.

I come to Scotland not for the heritage, primarily, but because I have never been. But once I arrive I start looking for my great grandmother, about whom I know practically nothing. I think that’s where Grandpa Pulsipher got his red hair, though. I didn’t know Grandpa with hair, let alone red hair. He is old by the time I am born. Is 64 old? He seems older, always.

His mother’s name is Margaret Ellen Greer, and the Greers are Scottish. I am vague on the genealogy but my first Greer ancestor in America is James, and he comes from Scotland directly. In the seventeenth century? Somehow 1682 seems right. It may be the eighteenth, though. I don’t know where from in Scotland but how hard can it be to find out? There are souvenir stores everywhere selling scarves, magnets, and little heritage books of Scottish names. I look in several, but they skip from Grant to Gunn. Where’s Greer?

Mostly in America, it turns out, where there are way more of them. There are less than a thousand here in Scotland. And before they were Greers, they were apparently MacGregors. Greer is a corruption of Gregor. Why did I not know this? One source says they adopt the name Greer after they are kicked out.

For what?

I hope it’s something good, like stealing cattle, instead of something bad, like selling out to the English.

At Edinburgh castle, they have a booth where they look up any European name. The man in front of me is thrilled that they have his (long) Italian name, one I have never heard of.¹ They have Greer too, though. It’s a highland name, the attendant says.

My family were highlanders! I mean, before they were Americans and then Mormons. But even then, according to my uncle Allan they were on the Scottish side of disreputable and involved in some sort of shady gun battle in Arizona. I mean to ask him the particulars, but I don’t get around to it. I feel like it was over cattle. Probably. The Greer motto is

Be Mindful.

This does not immediately resonate. Aren’t we always being told to be mindful? And isn’t the implication that we aren’t mindful enough? Maybe it is a cautionary tale for the Greers too. Be mindful, because remember when the MacGregors kicked us all out, lads? Be mindful, because most of the time, we’re kind of not? Arizona gun battle, anyone?

Only, I also take a highland tour where the guide talks about Rob Roy. Rob Roy MacGregor. Who along with other MacGregors, is not allowed to use the name when it was outlawed by the crown. MacGregors start using other names, then. Sometimes professions, sometimes other things. Rob Roy uses Campbell, his mother’s name. Could others have started using…Greer? The timing, as far as I can tell, would be about right. My memory of the 1995 Liam Neeson movie is practically nil, so I look him up. He was a “cattle dealer” and a Jacobite. So basically, my ancestor was Jamie Fraser.² Except, Greer. MacGregor. Whatever.

You know what’s easy to find in stores in Edinburgh? Stuff that says Smith. Smith plaid, Smith motto, Smith magnet and keychain. I mean, I knew it was the most common name in the English speaking world, in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. It just didn’t sound very Scottish. It isn’t a clan, exactly, but apparently they hail from Loch Lomond. Online I see multiple mottos but all the merchandise here in Edinburgh says this one:

I Shine, Not Burn.

The internet says that’s the Mackenzie motto, but not here in Edinburgh it isn’t. It is plastered on everything Smith. And that’s me! It is “the ability to withstand pressure and adversity without being consumed by it,” but like the Greer motto it feels like it needs…more.

I shine, not burn…except when I burn spectacularly, like a supernova!

I shine, not burn…as long as I remember the 50 SPF.

I shine, not burn…depending on who you ask.

Mike sometimes said he was not a Smith by blood, which vaguely bothered him in a way it never bothered me. Bailey Smith was (technically) my father in law’s step dad, but also the only dad he knew or remembered. Mike never was anything but a Smith. Names always seemed more fluid to me, but I am a woman. I’ve had three. Smith is my favorite. I shine, not burn.

I think of both of my mottos on my last full day in Edinburgh. I buy wool scarves in the Smith and MacGregor plaids. As I’ve done for days, I walk all over. I take a tour of Mary King’s Close in the morning and go straight to Holyrood Palace and tour that too. I go on a quest for pottery, which involves another hour of walking. I hit 3:30 and have a realization: If I am not traveling with other people to consider, I might possibly walk myself into exhaustion. It might be happening right now. This is the type of thing Mike worried about when he was dying, when he told people to take care of me. He knew I might climb every stair in Edinburgh, refuse to sit down, and forget to drink water.³

“Be mindful,” the Greers say.

“Shine don’t burn,” the Smiths remind me.

I walk back to my hotel and grab my laptop so I can do what I have been itching to do since I landed in a city famous for its writers and philosophers: Write. I find a pub called World’s End. I sit, and drink water (of life). And write.

The highland tour guide is actually named Dougie (pronounced like Howser M.D.) He’s the one who really points out the fluidity of names. That MacGregors needed to be something besides MacGregors for a while, and that being part of a clan is more loyalty than blood. If you wanted to be a MacGregor, or a Campbell, or a Fraser, you just need to swear your fealty and be one. and MacGregor becomes Grier becomes Greer. Margaret Ellen becomes a Pulsipher in any case when she falls in love with my great-grandpa, Ezekiel Charles. Charles becomes by dad’s middle name, later. My Aunt Pauline’s middle name was Ellen, presumably after Margaret.

I don’t see my face in the faces of Scottish people the way I see it in Denmark and Sweden. I favor my mother’s side of the family. But maybe I see my great grandmother, Margaret Ellen, the woman I do not know. Maybe people look like her, here. Maybe one of Margaret Ellen’s MacGregor ancestors winked at a handsome Smith four hundred years ago, up by Loch Lomond. It could happen to anyone. And perhaps there are other pieces of this place that made their way to me. A love of literature and writing. An ability to climb all those steps to Edinburgh Castle without stopping to rest. (I live in the mile high city, and bring my own type of highland lungs with me here).

I sit at a pub called World’s End, and then a plane, and then a desk in a hotel in a new city, writing. I have ancestors here too, but this is a riddle for another day. Tonight I am promising Margaret Ellen that I will sit down when my feet are tired sometimes. I can be as mindful as the next Greer descendant (maybe). I think of the clan I married into, and decide to drink more water. And

to shine…not burn.

1. It starts with “Ang” and then has a whole bunch of letters after that.

2. Surely you’ve read the Bible, by which I mean Outlander.

3. I’ve had plenty of whisky here though and this translates to “water of life.” So there’s that.