A day of mixed emotion and deep loss

Today, Bradley Hall was on the chilly side--though it felt nice to me, especially after a few days when we had to run the AC to keep the temperature comfortable (despite it being downright cold outside). But the C building, where my class met, was ungodly hot. At one point, I realized I was actually sweating ... er, perspiring along my hairline. But in terms of the class itself? Hot damn, they did a great job. Two of the students I'd pegged as among the best and brightest weren't there, but the ones who were showed more acumen and energy than I'd anticipated. Nice, bright, lively conversation--so although there was literal sweat, the class was no sweat at all. Good stuff going on.

Then I came back to the office, and was talking to Paul when a colleague called with the news that Ursula Le Guin has died. The colleague who called didn't know that I had any kind of personal relationship with her, and he apologized for breaking the news so abruptly; I felt a little odd about his reaction, but in fact, I do feel her death as a genuine and personal loss, not just of a distant star whose light I've admired but of a warm and vibrant presence that I felt in my life. As Paul pointed out, she is deeply interwoven in the fabric of my mind: I am who I am, think how I think, write how I write, in no small measure because I have been so deeply involved with her work for so long, and because I have had the correspondence with her that I've had. The two visits to her home that I was able to make are all the more precious to me now. Every contact with her, cherished.

No one thought like she did. No one wrote like she did. That brilliant, diamond-clear mind, that cutting intelligence and intellectual beauty, that grace, that wisdom. I loved knowing that was there, and now it isn't. All at once, the entire world seems much smaller. I mean that literally: to me, the world seems smaller, without the breadth and compass of her thinking, her writing, her self.

It will be strange to talk with students this semester about my relationship with her, to read her novel with them, and not be able to reach out to her about it.

I know I am not unique in this. I'm one of thousands who adore her work, one of countless who wanted to feel some kind of contact with her. She was always deeply generous with her time and her ideas, and I'm sure her family will be overwhelmed with cards and flowers and letters from people mourning her loss. But I do know that she valued our contact. I know she valued my thinking about her work. I am deeply proud of that knowledge, and I wish I could find some sufficient way to honor it, to honor her.

So, there will now be silence from that realm. But what she left, all her words: those remain. Those are living presences among us now and, I'm sure, for generations to come. She's one for the ages.

Ach, I'm too sad to say more. Tomorrow, I'll return to the trenches and to blogging about the day-to-day ups and downs of teaching here. Tonight, I'll take my sorrow and go home.