On Friday, I found myself crying at the bus stop when “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” rotated into play.
An odd song to trigger tears, right? But some of my readers may already know where this is going.
Star C. Foster was the first person I became friends with online without ever having met her in person. We connected through Orkut then she invited me to Flickr. I followed her plublic blog, her LiveJournal, and the sites where she contributed articles. I met others through her, and I learned about her city of Philadelphia.
My heart broke for her as her relationship crumbled rather publicly, but Star picked up the pieces and went on living the life she wanted. She kept writing and blogging. She continued to pursue world domination with the aid of her robot, Trotwood. She happily donned costumes and makeup to act as a vampire, or zombie, or pirate whenever the opportunity arose. I shared her excitement as she took up dancing and met her kindred spirit.
And then the impossible happened: a sore ankle somehow led to a blood clot and a pulmonary embolism and she was gone. It’s been nearly 8 years — much longer than I knew her — and I still can’t believe it.
Getting back to that track, I might not have found LCD Soundsystem or that song without Star’s endorsement,
“…I can’t listen to their (his?) self-titled album without dancing all over the place. This is especially true of my favorite track, Daft Punk is Playing at My House.”1
..and I will never be able to hear it without thinking of her.
When the same song came up for a second time on Friday evening — this time on the soundtrack for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist — I decided Star needed to be heard and so I started composing this post.
Doing so, I started digging back through what she’d written, re-reading the shocked obituaries that appeared, and remembering how her friends and family embraced one another and included me, too.
Star herself thought about and wrote about death, funerals, and legacies — more than anything she was determined to leave her mark, to make a “dent in the universe,” and to be remembered,
“But do I want to leave behind something after I die, so that I will be celebrated, venerated, remembered? Hell, yes. I am human after all – burdened too with ego and super ego. I write; and if recording one’s thoughts, ideas, dreams and stories isn’t the most willful act of enforced remembrance, I can’t imagine what is”2
I think she succeeded. While she may not have published novels like those of Dickens (whose writing she loved), we can still read the thoughts she shared through her blog and articles, and see her world through her archive of photos at Flickr. In Philadelphia, you can visit Rittenhouse Square — a place that was dear to her in life — and see the plaque placed there in her memory, across from one of her favourite sculptures. There’s also a scholarship in her name for aspiring writers to encourage others to follow in her wake.
I always smile when I read the paragraph at the head of her last post,
My PC fan is slowly dying. I’m hoping it will wait till after the holidays to give up the ghost. With all of Scrooges fellas flying about, we’re up to our ears in ghosts already. (Also, if this post ends abruptly, you’ll know why. Just in case, I’ll be trying to back some thing up over night tonight. In either case, forgive my brevity.)3
Such a modern and uncanny coincidence that she was worried about her PC dying when her own body betrayed her instead.
Star is still one of my muses; she is one of the voices that urges me to write, and to try things, and go places, and live like there is no tomorrow because one day there won’t be.
1. Do You Like Good Music? (Yeah, Yeah) Sarcasmo’s Corner, April 28, 2006
2. Sarcasmo in Necropolis Sarcasmo’s Corner, October 11, 2005
3. Friday Follies Sarcasmo’s Corner, December 7, 2006
Note that I had to disable javascript in order to view the archives of Sarcasmo’s Corner because a tracker script was redirecting the pages.
Oddly enough Cheryl, I knew this was about Star before I got past he first sentence. What a good friend you are . Such a great post. She truly left her mark. Proven by the fact that she is still being quoted. We are coming up on her favorite time of year, Halloween. I think of her all the time, but now even more. Her 5 year old niece Zoe tells me that Halloween is her favorite holiday and should be more than 1 day long.and today, I had a conversation with Star’s sister about Trotwood. And then I saw your post. Makes you wonder what is up.
Thanks Cheryl.
I knew you would instantly recognize the reference — and I do think she is a little more present in our minds during the Halloween season. If there is a way to focus energy on a subject, I am sure Star can feel it at this time of year.