The rain returned today
This weekend was going pretty well; nice and mellow. Went to a wine & tapas tasting with coworkers on Friday night; went to a dance workshop and then a yoga class on Saturday, then spent a chill evening at home with kitties and knitting. Yesterday was Eugene Sunday Streets, where they block off a bunch of streets from car traffic and encourage foot, bike, and skate traffic, as well as offering a bunch of live music, wellness booths, and activities in local parks. It was in my neck of the woods this year, so I walked out to go check it out, watched some music, aerial silks, and acro-yoga, and took some free classes in hooping and sun salutations. The weather was beautiful, and there were kids and families and older folks and dogs everywhere, and everybody was in a good mood. I even met this year's Slug Queen, who was out rambling in full knitted regalia. I stopped by the hippie market on the way home to get some more fresh figs (I am obsessed with fresh figs), and stopped at the organic frozen yogurt cart next door to get some vegan organic vanilla frozen yogurt with fresh figs swirled into it. So good. All in all, I walked about 4 miles, did about 45 minutes of hooping, and 30 minutes of yoga. Took a short nap when I got home, then made a pot of veggie soup and went to dance class (where, thankfully, I didn't have to dance that much, since I was pooped and the student troupe was prepping a set for next week's studio salon.)
And then I came home and found out that one of my faculty members and her partner had been murdered, apparently by her partner's son.
I didn't, and still don't, know what to do with this. It seems unreal. I don't even know how to answer the question when people have asked me if we were close-- not really, and yet, she was one of the most welcoming faculty members when I first arrived here, and has probably had the most correspondence with me of any of the faculty here. I just ordered a bunch of book requests she'd sent me. And I knew her socially a bit, mostly through my friend Kim, whose dissertation she was chairing. I met her partner only once, at Kim's Dia de los Muertos gathering last year, and I remember them seeming like an odd match but clearly happy with each other. She came to my office this past spring when the new faculty union was having its union card drive, to convince me to sign a card and join the union. She always seemed to have a strong will, but was never domineering, and always cared.
I've lost people to cancer, to car accidents, to the ravages of old age, to birth defects and illness, and to war. I've never lost anyone to individual violence deliberately perpetrated by another human. It seems so surreal; I don't know why it happened, and so I can't form a story to make sense of it. To have somebody live so long, so brilliantly, with such a successful career, and then to have their light snuffed out like this, at this point in their life... I don't know how to process it.
And then I came home and found out that one of my faculty members and her partner had been murdered, apparently by her partner's son.
I didn't, and still don't, know what to do with this. It seems unreal. I don't even know how to answer the question when people have asked me if we were close-- not really, and yet, she was one of the most welcoming faculty members when I first arrived here, and has probably had the most correspondence with me of any of the faculty here. I just ordered a bunch of book requests she'd sent me. And I knew her socially a bit, mostly through my friend Kim, whose dissertation she was chairing. I met her partner only once, at Kim's Dia de los Muertos gathering last year, and I remember them seeming like an odd match but clearly happy with each other. She came to my office this past spring when the new faculty union was having its union card drive, to convince me to sign a card and join the union. She always seemed to have a strong will, but was never domineering, and always cared.
I've lost people to cancer, to car accidents, to the ravages of old age, to birth defects and illness, and to war. I've never lost anyone to individual violence deliberately perpetrated by another human. It seems so surreal; I don't know why it happened, and so I can't form a story to make sense of it. To have somebody live so long, so brilliantly, with such a successful career, and then to have their light snuffed out like this, at this point in their life... I don't know how to process it.