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pallas_athena) wrote2021-12-07 02:18 pm
pallas_athena) wrote2021-12-07 02:18 pm
Eulogy given at the funeral of Petra Mayer, 4 December 2021
Petra and I have been friends since around age 10. In middle school we fought a lot — largely because school was awful and we were in a continuously horrible mood for about 8 years. But by 9th, 10th and 11th grade we had settled into a friendship distinguished by public weirdness, extravagant modes of dress, sitting in the Bishops’ Garden playing guitars, singing, burning incense and eating crystallised ginger— the more fiery the better. And then, of course, there were comics.
We had this routine where we would go to Big Planet in Bethesda and buy comics, often from Jef, the nice (and extremely patient) fellow behind the counter. We’d dance up and down the aisles of colourful covers, calling to each other— have you read this? Ohmygod you HAVE to read this! I’m not letting you leave without this! Look, I’ll lend you mine, but you have to read this! (In retrospect, it’s not surprising that when Petra found her ideal career, it turned out to be, essentially, that.)
And then we would go around the corner to the Tastee Diner, order fries and chocolate milkshakes, dip the fries in the milkshakes and read the comics. In those days we read mostly indie comics, because those were sufficiently cool for us to be seen reading. We read our way through Sandman, Transmetropolitan, Preacher, Desert Peach, Finder and many other titles which are now problematic. It was only later that we discovered the joy of superheroes. As mature adults, we were ready to embrace the joys of fighting crime in colourful tights. (Anyone who’s ever read a 1980s X-Men comic will recognise a certain kinship with Petra’s fashion sense.)
We joke about how, in the X-Men and other superhero comics, death is a revolving door. But what it really is, I think, is a form of theatre. A favourite character will die so that the writer and the artist can give them that moment, and so that they can show all the other characters reacting, put those emotions on display. And then, after a certain interval, it becomes evident that you can’t really tell the story without that character, that the superhero team isn’t the same without them, and the fans are discontented— so a writer will find a way to bring them back. And that panel, the panel where you first see that character again, is always as beautiful as the artist can make it. Sometimes, if you’re really lucky, it can feel like light is emanating from the page.
And God, I wish Petra were only comics dead. Because right now, a lot of us are feeling as though the story can’t continue without her. And the various teams she was a member of are feeling distinctly less super. All our powers are dimmed and lessened in her absence. Without her, who’s going to want to read the book? What editor okayed this decision? And what kind of douchebag author would write it in the first place?
Petra didn’t really give bad reviews, but she would definitely deem this situation unworthy of inclusion in the august archive of NPR. She would read anything, but her least favourite genre was where everything is terrible for no reason.
But I wish Petra were only comics dead. Because then, in some future adventure, we might hope to see her again. Perhaps in the lair of a mad scientist— always a popular choice for resurrections (and very Petra). Or in some far-flung corner of the cosmos, or an alternate universe— someplace with a lot of Kirby dots. When we least expected it, there she’d be, and we would fall to our knees in disbelief and weep for joy.
Even if it were one of those comics where she came back as Evil Petra in a cool new costume and extravagant eyeliner, somehow convinced that she must use her unholy powers to destroy us all, we would know what to do. We would play her some Magnetic Fields or some 80s rap, or put on an episode of Bake Off, or point over there and say “Hey, is that David Tennant?” And she’d immediately forget to be evil and go “ohmygod, where?!”
And you’d get that scene which we get over and over in comics, but we still can’t get enough of: that scene where a character’s turned evil somehow and there’s a big dramatic fight scene, and then their best friend or someone who’s been on their team for a long time will grab their arm and say “This isn’t you. I know you, let me tell you…” and the character is recalled to themselves by that recollection, that voice. And that’s absolutely what a friend is and does. A friend is someone who can tell your own story back to you when you’ve forgotten it. And Petra was such a great friend to so many of us, she knew so many of our stories and carried them with her. And even though we all know we’re bit parts at best, Petra could make you feel like a protagonist.
So what we have to do for now and later on, and maybe for the rest of our lives, is: to live our stories as though Petra were reading them. Because maybe, somewhere, she is. And when we arrive where she has gone, as we all must, the last thing we’d want is to have bored her.
Meanwhile, today, we should tell the stories we have about her. Tell the funny ones, the embarrassing ones— the ones that would make her want to come back from the grave to tell us to shut up— the ones where she’s great (which is all of them). Because, as she carried parts of all our stories, so we all carry parts of hers, and we always will.
I’d like to close with a short verse by Edna St Vincent Millay, one of the few poets (I think) capable of capturing the emotion of a moment like this:
For you there is no song,
Only the shaking
Of the voice that meant to sing; the sound of the strong
Voice breaking.
Strange in my hand appears
The pen, and yours broken.
There are ink and tears on the page; only the tears
Have spoken.
We had this routine where we would go to Big Planet in Bethesda and buy comics, often from Jef, the nice (and extremely patient) fellow behind the counter. We’d dance up and down the aisles of colourful covers, calling to each other— have you read this? Ohmygod you HAVE to read this! I’m not letting you leave without this! Look, I’ll lend you mine, but you have to read this! (In retrospect, it’s not surprising that when Petra found her ideal career, it turned out to be, essentially, that.)
And then we would go around the corner to the Tastee Diner, order fries and chocolate milkshakes, dip the fries in the milkshakes and read the comics. In those days we read mostly indie comics, because those were sufficiently cool for us to be seen reading. We read our way through Sandman, Transmetropolitan, Preacher, Desert Peach, Finder and many other titles which are now problematic. It was only later that we discovered the joy of superheroes. As mature adults, we were ready to embrace the joys of fighting crime in colourful tights. (Anyone who’s ever read a 1980s X-Men comic will recognise a certain kinship with Petra’s fashion sense.)
We joke about how, in the X-Men and other superhero comics, death is a revolving door. But what it really is, I think, is a form of theatre. A favourite character will die so that the writer and the artist can give them that moment, and so that they can show all the other characters reacting, put those emotions on display. And then, after a certain interval, it becomes evident that you can’t really tell the story without that character, that the superhero team isn’t the same without them, and the fans are discontented— so a writer will find a way to bring them back. And that panel, the panel where you first see that character again, is always as beautiful as the artist can make it. Sometimes, if you’re really lucky, it can feel like light is emanating from the page.
And God, I wish Petra were only comics dead. Because right now, a lot of us are feeling as though the story can’t continue without her. And the various teams she was a member of are feeling distinctly less super. All our powers are dimmed and lessened in her absence. Without her, who’s going to want to read the book? What editor okayed this decision? And what kind of douchebag author would write it in the first place?
Petra didn’t really give bad reviews, but she would definitely deem this situation unworthy of inclusion in the august archive of NPR. She would read anything, but her least favourite genre was where everything is terrible for no reason.
But I wish Petra were only comics dead. Because then, in some future adventure, we might hope to see her again. Perhaps in the lair of a mad scientist— always a popular choice for resurrections (and very Petra). Or in some far-flung corner of the cosmos, or an alternate universe— someplace with a lot of Kirby dots. When we least expected it, there she’d be, and we would fall to our knees in disbelief and weep for joy.
Even if it were one of those comics where she came back as Evil Petra in a cool new costume and extravagant eyeliner, somehow convinced that she must use her unholy powers to destroy us all, we would know what to do. We would play her some Magnetic Fields or some 80s rap, or put on an episode of Bake Off, or point over there and say “Hey, is that David Tennant?” And she’d immediately forget to be evil and go “ohmygod, where?!”
And you’d get that scene which we get over and over in comics, but we still can’t get enough of: that scene where a character’s turned evil somehow and there’s a big dramatic fight scene, and then their best friend or someone who’s been on their team for a long time will grab their arm and say “This isn’t you. I know you, let me tell you…” and the character is recalled to themselves by that recollection, that voice. And that’s absolutely what a friend is and does. A friend is someone who can tell your own story back to you when you’ve forgotten it. And Petra was such a great friend to so many of us, she knew so many of our stories and carried them with her. And even though we all know we’re bit parts at best, Petra could make you feel like a protagonist.
So what we have to do for now and later on, and maybe for the rest of our lives, is: to live our stories as though Petra were reading them. Because maybe, somewhere, she is. And when we arrive where she has gone, as we all must, the last thing we’d want is to have bored her.
Meanwhile, today, we should tell the stories we have about her. Tell the funny ones, the embarrassing ones— the ones that would make her want to come back from the grave to tell us to shut up— the ones where she’s great (which is all of them). Because, as she carried parts of all our stories, so we all carry parts of hers, and we always will.
I’d like to close with a short verse by Edna St Vincent Millay, one of the few poets (I think) capable of capturing the emotion of a moment like this:
For you there is no song,
Only the shaking
Of the voice that meant to sing; the sound of the strong
Voice breaking.
Strange in my hand appears
The pen, and yours broken.
There are ink and tears on the page; only the tears
Have spoken.