Losing Meg Brazill
We lost someone this past week. Her name is Meg Brazill. She had numerous close friends throughout the Upper Valley and beyond, especially in the arts community, all of whom are mourning her passing. I can’t, and would not presume to, claim the special status of close friend, but I am mourning her loss too.
There has been a number of articles written over these past pandemic years about the forced diminishment, but also importance, of casual connections (one writer called them “weak ties” and others struggle to find just the right word) that fall short of full-fledged friendship. Like the barista with whom you chat regularly while watching her create your cappuccino, or the mail carrier who faithfully trudges up your driveway to deliver a package, with whom you exchange pleasantries and voice your gratitude.
Meg was much more than that in my life, but I didn’t know her well enough or long enough to call her a “close friend,” and “acquaintance” seems too distant to fit. We had a professional connection but our interchanges were more personal than that. (Maybe you also have people in your life with whom your connection is hard to describe.) So I too am struggling to find the right word. I’ve settled on “near-friend,” as maybe we would have, given time, become fully “friends.” In the meantime, being a “near-friend” of Meg’s was pretty good on its own.
I first met Meg a few years ago when she popped up as my designated docent for a personal one-on-one tour at the Hall Art Foundation in Reading VT. Such knowledge she had, and such an animated delivery! It was kind of thrilling to meet her in person after having read much of the work she’d done as an arts writer, and it was flattering for me, a relative newcomer to arts writing, that she knew my work as well. Our tour ended up stretching way beyond its allotted time as we talked enthusiastically about the exhibition, art, arts writing, and ourselves.
From that point on, Meg often sent me story ideas and commented on pieces I published on this blog, calling them “Apel missives.” When early in my writing career I consulted her about what to do when a publisher kept neglecting to pay me for work I had already submitted, she was kind enough to be full of indignation on my behalf and strategized with me about next steps.
But time was fleeting and filled with the stuff of life. My email and text archives are testament to our attempts to have coffee or lunch together. First she was traveling (Mexico.) (In that vein, her Twitter bio reads in part,“In Vermont—always leaving it, still loving it.” In that same bio, she self-identifies as “Recovering Punk Rocker.” That is a longer, and true story.) And then I was out of the country (France and Great Britain), after which she was relocating and taking on the challenge of a new job as Director of Communications and Events at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock, VT. Some time just went by as it does, and then, boom—the virtual lockdown of the pandemic. Our shared passion, Bookstock, was canceled and reborn as an online-only event. Meg and I made do with some interchanges on social media, and last fall, we toasted by raising our mugs to each other on our computer screens and settled in for a long Zoom chat.
I hate saying goodbye, Meg, but having no choice, let me say that while I will miss the opportunity of more time with you, I am honored and grateful to have been a near-friend, or whatever nomenclature is most apt. If this pandemic ever ends, may I be better at operationalizing coffee dates and lunches, giving them a degree of priority over other things that fill the days. I’ll remember you often.
And wherever you may be: Rock on truly, sister-writer.
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.