A Lot of Consonants

The other day I went for a long walk and tried to decide what I would remember most about 2011, and lord knows there were plenty of noteworthy moments, a 100k bike ride and climbing Mount Kineo alone and, oh right, upending my life in Maine in order to move back to New York for a job. There were memorable lowlights, too, frustrating minor health concerns and motley humiliations, and like it or not those things are just as noteworthy as anything else- but the whole time I pondered this a little voice in my head kept saying, 2011 was the year Cheryl B. died.

What is strange about this is that I did not know Cheryl very well. We met through a friend with whom I’m no longer in touch—which is a shame, now that I think about it—and I saw her at a few parties and chatted with her at a few readings. I remember the first time I met her; she was wearing a black top and dark lipstick and her hair was sort of messy and the first thing that popped into my mind was that Bikini Kill line: “That girl thinks she’s the queen of the neighborhood / I got news for you, she is.” Cheryl was someone I noticed. She was someone you had to notice. I was struck by her confidence, the easy way she moved, the way she talked with precision and humor, the way she fixed her eyes on me and listened (really listened) to what I was saying even though I was probably the only person in the room who was not a published author, a book editor or both. We ended up leaving the party at the same time and as we walked to the train I realized that I had moved to New York so I could meet people like this.

I wish I could say I got to know Cheryl better after that, or that we’d stayed in touch through the years, but I didn’t and we didn’t. We ran into each other now and then, said hi, how are you, nice to see you. We were acquaintances, we had typically casual social connections. After I left New York and moved to Maine I heard she’d been diagnosed with cancer, and I began reading her hilarious and heartwrenching stories at WTF Cancer Diaries. Once in a while I thought about writing her an email, but I never did, because life was busy and we hadn’t really known each other so well anyway.

At one point I posted a link to WTF Cancer Diaries on Twitter and she @ replied, “Thanks, Mary!” That was the last communication we ever had. 

I learned of Cheryl’s death from Facebook, early one morning last June, just as I was packing my things to move back to New York. Someone announced the news in a status update, because that is how it goes now. I sat at the kitchen table and cried harder than I had cried in a long time, the stupid throat-rattling kind of crying that leaves you snotty and gasping. Death is always a shock—especially when it comes many decades too soon—but I was unprepared for this, confused by it even, because we weren’t really friends, we were just acquaintances, it shouldn’t have felt so sharp and so personal.

And yet it did and it still does and I still can’t explain it. Maybe it had to do with that email I never sent, or the fact that I associated Cheryl with New York and then I left and came back and she was gone. Maybe it’s because it hurts to think of the poems and stories that won’t get written, or because the loss of someone so young and talented reminds me that time may be running out, for me, for you, for all my talented friends who say they’ll write that story someday (just not today). I think it is a combination of these things, but ultimately explanation is unnecessary. Death doesn’t give reasons, so grief doesn’t need to either. Why is the wrong question, and in this case it’s a narcissistic one, anyway. I’ll mark this year with mourning for an artist I did not know well enough, I’ll do it because I am doing it. The real question is, to what end?