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Where I Got the Crazy Idea for Swans in Winter & Other Tidbits
Years ago I worked in my community to try and stop the county from doing roadside herbicide spraying. I believed it was harmful to people and to the environment. I was also registered with the state as pesticide sensitive. This meant that I had to be notified if the county sprayed near where I lived. One day I noticed that the blackberries out in front of our rented house were wilting. I recognized that wilt: It was from pesticide spraying, and no one had notified me. I called the county and found out they had sprayed. I was furious. I had been trying to work with them for years, but this was the last straw. I contacted an environmental lawyer, and I sued the county.
We settled on a small amount of money, and the county agreed to convene a committee to figure out how to start an Integrated Pest and Vegetation Management (IPVM) program in our county. We used the settlement money to move into town to get away from the pesticide spraying.
I was part of the IPVM committee. It didn't go well. There were all men on the county side and all women on the community side. The men didn't listen to any of our scientific studies. Actually they wouldn't listen to anything we had to say. They sat there with their arms crossed, stone-faced. I came to the conclusion that the county commissioners had only convened the group to distract us while they did whatever they wanted. Which is what happened. The committee dissolved after a year, and the county still sprays just as much as they ever did. The entire process was very discouraging.
One day I had an urge to go back to Skamania Landing where we had lived and where they had illegally sprayed. On the Turtle Pond near our old house, I saw several swans. We had lived there for seven years and had never seen swans on the pond.
I went home and started writing Swans in Winter. I was writing longhand and it went crazy fast. The next day, I drove to Skamania Landing again and the swans were still there. I watched them for a while, and then I went home and wrote on Swans in Winter. The next day I did the same thing. I'd go see the swans, and then I'd come home and write.
I believe it took me seventeen days to write the novel. When I finished writing the novel, the swans flew away. In the years since I wrote the novel, the swans have not returned to the Turtle Pond. (They spend the winter at Franz Lake which is a few miles away from the Turtle Pond.) I still believe the swans came to inspire me to write Swans in Winter.
I had never written a book that quickly before. It was a wonderful feeling to be in the flow of it. It was also healing to write this book. For the last few years that we'd lived on Skamania Landing, I had felt besieged. Not only was the county illegally spraying herbicides, the community I lived in wanted to fog for mosquitoes. It was quite traumatizing.
Afterward people kept telling me I should write about what happened, but I rarely write about my life. I needed some distance. Once I was living in town, I felt safer. Then I was able to write a very fictional account of our battle with the county.
That said, the events in the book are fictitious, although we did experience a storm here in 1996 which is very much like the storm in the novel. The characters in the book are fictitious, too, although some of the POOL women are composites of women I know here. We did have a real group called POOL and the women did agree to pose for a calendar we were going to create to raise money for a lawyer. We didn't do it then, but I figure it's always a possibility!
Wholly Inadequate Descriptions of This Book
The One Sentence Pitch
India Lake loves the wild and she will do anything to protect it—including taking off her clothes.
(or)
India Lake and her friends try to the save the Turtle Pond and the swans from pesticides and from a timber company with the help of photographer Benjamin Swan.
Cover blurb
India Lake is in the middle of a full blown mid-life crisis. Her love life is stalled, to say the least. And her boss forces her to take a two-month vacation after she loses her temper with a library patron at work. A few days later, while observing the swans who have migrated from Alaska to a pond near her home, India meets photographer extraordinaire Benjamin Swan. India and Benjamin are immediately attracted to one another. India wonders if he might be what her friend Rhonda calls a “sole mate,” someone India can walk through life with. But the mysterious photographer and nature lover has many secrets. When the swans and Turtle Pond are threatened by pesticides and a shadowy lumber company, India and her friends from POOL (Pissed Off Old Ladies) decide to pose in the buff for a lunar calendar they can sell to raise enough money to hire an environmental lawyer to protect the land and the swans. As India talks to each woman and Benjamin takes their photographs, India comes to realize her place in this community of Swan Maidens. Once Benjamin’s secrets are revealed, can she forgive her Swan Knight? And can she save the wild and learn who her true “sole” mate is?
First Chapter
Chapter One
THE AUTUMN RAIN tasted like cloud sweat. India leaned against the cottonwood for protection from the icy east wind and stood on her toes to see over the tall dirty-gold pond grass. A white neck curving to gray floated into view. India grinned and put her hand over her mouth so she would not laugh out loud.
The swans were back!
The swan wiped her black beak on her white and gray neck. Then she stopped. Another swan floated into view. They both looked at India. Talking to each other about the strange watching creature? India wondered.
Another swan joined them.
India stepped forward until she could see most of the east end of Turtle Pond.
Four, five, six swans, she counted.
Gracefully, the swans glided west, away from her, elegant S curves. India wanted to dance a jig or sing a song. Twenty-seven swans!
She gasped. They were so beautiful.
Being this close to the swans made India feel like she was in the midst of a miracle. Or a fairy tale where the hera has just discovered the treasure—or the answer to the riddle of life.
Suddenly, all as one, the swans pumped their wings and lifted up from the pond, no splashes or cries of distress like the ducks, no annoyed honking like the geese. Just air. Silence. Then their own peculiar song of . . . jubilance? Irritation? What was that sound? How could she describe it?
Otherworldly. No. Childlike. Eerie.
India leaned her head back and turned as the swans flew over her. More curves. White fading into the clouds. They became a stark line of white against the dark rocky gorge cliffs as they followed the Columbia River west.
In another moment, India could no longer see them. She looked down again.
She jumped at the sight of a man standing twenty feet from her. He stared after the swans, too. Bearded. Head covered with a black cap. Dressed in an orange parka. A hunter? No gun. Boots muddy.
India started to walk away.
“Did you notice how many?” the man asked.
India turned around. The rain had stopped, the wind lessened.
“Twenty-seven,” she said.
The man reached into his parka, pulled out a small spiral notebook with a tiny pen attached to it. He unhooked the pen, wrote something in the pad, then shoved them both into his pocket again.
“Thanks,” he said. “I got up late today.” He nodded toward the river.
India followed the tilt of his head and saw a small blue tent in the distance. He was going to freeze or drown if that tent was his only shelter.
“You’re the guy Jack Combs from the reserve told me about,” India said. “You’re studying the swans this winter.”
The man nodded. “That’s me,” he said. He looked her in the eyes and smiled. Why was he looking so intently at her? She wanted to step away from his gaze.
He held out his hand.
Oh no, she thought, now I have to touch him!
“Benjamin Swan.”
“You’re kidding,” she said, shaking his hand. He held on to her hand for a second too long.
“Yes, that’s my name,” he said, laughing. “It’s worse. My middle name is Anthony.” He looked at her expectantly.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“Benjamin Anthony Swan. B. A. Swan.”
“Your parents had a sense of humor.”
He nodded and still watched her. She looked away. She had a pot of minestrone on the stove. A paperback mystery waited. And she was cold.
“You like the swans,” he said.
She glanced at him. “Yes.”
They both looked at the pond, now empty of swans.
“I figure a world where swans exist can’t be all bad,” India said.
“Thank you,” he said.
India looked at the man. “What? Oh, yes, well, I meant the feathered kind.”
“Ahhh,” he said.
“It was nice meeting you,” India said.
“But I haven’t met you,” he said. He smiled. His beard was black and brown. Any gray? India instinctively touched her own covered head. Hers was nearly all gray. She was the only forty-something woman she knew who did not dye her hair. Gray is beautiful she told her friends; I’ve earned every one of these gray hairs. They laughed at her and said, gray is just old. They were right, of course. As India’s hair turned from brown to gray, people stopped seeing her. It was as if she no longer existed. Strangers looked right through her.
Until now. This stranger kept looking right at her. What was wrong with him?
“You’re India, aren’t you?” he asked. “Jack told me about you, too.”
“Oh? What’d he say, be on the lookout for the little old lady who haunts the meadow by Turtle Pond?”
The man flinched.
Feeling a little bitter these days, girl? she thought. Gawd. She wanted to get out of this conversation gracefully.
“No, he said his friend India lived nearby and she knows a lot about ponds.”
“That’s me,” she said. “I’m India.” She was embarrassed. “But I think Jack must have been pulling your leg. Perhaps he said I knew a lot about lakes, not ponds. Because that’s my name. India Lake. He’s always teasing me about my name. My parents had a sense of humor, too.” Why was she babbling like this? “Well, my lunch is waiting. I better go.”
She waved, turned, and hurried away. What was wrong with her? She was with the public nearly every day. Why was she suddenly a raving lunatic?
“I like it,” the man called.
India looked over her shoulder as she kept walking.
“What?”
“Your name. I like your name, India Lake. It’s geographical.”
She stopped. “Geographical?”
“Yeah, geography. A place you can call home. India Lake.”
Rain began pelting India. The wind shook what leaves were left on the cottonwood. Benjamin Swan stood in the pasture between the pond and the cottonwood, feet apart, anchored in the muddy ground, dressed in his bright orange parka. He grinned at her.
She smiled uncomfortably, frowned, then turned away. The rain was cold. She wished she could fly home.
Instead, she ran.
INDIA GOT TO the front porch of her little gray rented house seconds before the clouds burst open. She glanced at the gorge cliffs across the river. Snow fell there, dusting the evergreens with what looked like powdered sugar and falling into ravines, creating white Vs that would remain until spring.
India went inside and shook off her wet coat, hat, scarf, boots, and socks. Her slacks were wet, too. She stepped out of them and took the whole pile of clothes to the laundry room where she spread them out to dry. She got another pair of slacks from the chair in her bedroom. She stood in front of the picture window holding her slacks and looking out at the storm.
The rain fell in sheets over the river and out in the meadow where she had just talked with the man about the swans. She could see part of the pond from here, the curves of its banks serpentine. The first time she had seen the pond she had assumed it was this murky little place where nothing lived. Until Rhonda told her about the turtles. Then India took her binoculars out to the edge of the muddy water and looked through them until she saw turtles sunning themselves on the shiny gray trunks of long ago dead and decapitated trees.
Each time India returned to the pond she saw more wildlife: the great blue heron fishing at the edges, bald eagles swooping quietly down from a nearby cottonwood, osprey noisily searching for prey in the cloudy waters, various species of ducks raising their young, and kingfishers calling out as they furiously flapped their wings and flew over the pond. During the summer India watched the female turtles go into a kind of trance as they laid their eggs along the sides of the path; she waited until fall to watch them hatch out.
When Jack Combs, the ranger, rented the state land surrounding the pond to a cattle rancher who was also the local sheriff, things changed. India fought to keep them from mowing or driving along the path when the turtles were laying eggs. She called the sheriff each time the cows broke through the fencing and headed straight for the pond, where they trampled the fragile shoreline as they grazed and defecated. The rancher told her, “Turtles are nasty creatures. I’ve seen turtles swoop underneath a baby duck and pull it right down into the water and drown it.”
“Those are snapping turtles; these are western pond turtles,“ she explained to him, although that was beside the point.
India told Rhonda, “I should have said so what? Are we only supposed to save those things that are cute and cuddly? What a boring world that would be.”
Now India looked away from the pond and tried to find the blue tent. She could not see it. She hoped Benjamin Swan didn’t freeze. She pulled on her slacks and wondered if someone outside could see her inside, half naked, trying to get dressed.
She shrugged and padded into the bathroom and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her curly gray hair was matted down on one side. Bags under her eyes. Blue eyes. Not as blue as Benjamin Swan’s. She shook her head. She had never been vain before. Why start now? She stared at her reflection. She hadn’t been vain before because she had been attractive most of her life. Pretty. Cute.
She was long past cute.
It made her angry that she cared.
She stuck out her tongue at her reflection, then went into the kitchen to heat up her soup.
It was all nonsense. She did not like thinking about herself in those terms: attractive, ugly, old, young. Her life had never been about those things. Why had she become aware of it lately?
She ladled the minestrone into an apricot-colored fiesta ware bowl and went and sat at the round wooden table in front of the picture window. Rain streaked the glass, making the outside world look like a melting painting.
India heard a knock at her front door.
“Hello!” Rhonda’s voice.
“Come in,” India called. She looked across the room as Rhonda opened the door, shut it, and took off her coat.
“Geez Louise,” Rhonda said. “It is cold and miserable.” She strode across the room. She was a big older woman with the grace of a flamingo. Or a swan. No. A bear. A big ol’ Grizzly bear.
“Minestrone on the stove,” India said as Rhonda pulled out a chair.
“I don’t want any of your healthy crap,” Rhonda said, grinning. “What are you up to today?”
“Went out to the pond,” India said between mouthfuls. Steam rose from the concoction of zucchinis, peas, potatoes, carrots, onion, celery, garlic, and a bit of tomato and pasta. How could anyone not want to fill their bellies with this delicious brew?
“This is so good, Rhonda. You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“That’s what you said about that tofu broccoli casserole,” she said.
“Yeah and I was right,” India said. “You would have liked it if I’d said the tofu was fried chicken bits. Besides, I only gave you some because you insisted on tasting it.”
“Well, I’ve learned my lesson,” Rhonda said. She shuddered. India laughed.
“I saw a tent out between the meadow and the river,” Rhonda said. “You hear anything about who the occupant is?”
“He’s a friend of Jack Combs,” India said. “He’s studying the swans.”
“He’s actually sleeping in that tent?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You met him?”
“Yeah, he was out counting the swans. Get this. His name is Benjamin Swan.”
“How apropos,” Rhonda said. “How does Jack know him?”
“I don’t know.”
Rhonda rolled her eyes. “Where’s the whole story here, girl? You’re the librarian. Aren’t you supposed to be an information specialist? This is very little information, my friend. Isaac and I should have him over for dinner. Was he interesting?”
India shrugged. “He seemed nice enough.”
Rhonda looked at her. “But?”
“No but. He was nice. He’d fit in at one of your dinners, I’m sure.”
“One of our dinners? What does that mean?” Rhonda asked.
“It means you find the most interesting people in the area and invite them to dinner so you can interrogate them about their lives,” India said. “He’d probably have lots of interesting conversation in him, and he could use a hot meal.” India pushed away her empty bowl. “He stared at me a little. Made me a little bit uncomfortable.”
“Psycho-uncomfortable?”
“No, I don’t think so. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sure he’s nice.”
India stood, picked up the bowl, and carried it to the sink.
“Have you decided where you’re going on your vacation?” Rhonda asked. “When’s it start?”
India returned to the table and sat next to Rhonda.
“In a couple of days. December first. I don’t know if I’m going anywhere. Maybe I’ll stay here and write, paint, watch the swans.”
Rhonda made a noise. “This is the worst time of the year to stay here. You need sunshine, a bathing suit, someone tall, dark, and handsome.”
India laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I need. You think everything can be solved with sex.”
“No, I just fantasize everything can be solved with sex. I’m an old lady. I got no more desire.”
“Right. I see you and Isaac making out when you think no one is looking.” India laughed and affectionately slapped Rhonda’s arm. “What’d you come over for anyway? I’ve got things to do. I can’t waste my afternoon gabbing with you.”
“I was taking a stroll,” Rhonda said, “and I saw the swans flying overhead. I wanted to let you know they were back. And to see if you wanted to sign up for the belly dancing class on Tuesday. Violet needs one more to make the class go.”
“I’ve told you before I’ve never been good at organized dance. I am not graceful.”
“Come on. It’s supposed to be a very ancient form of dance. The body creates geometric shapes that heal, make desire, and create the Universe. Dance existed before sound, you know. Before the word.”
“I thought the purpose of belly dancing was to get men hot,” India said.
“No, it’s to get women hot.”
“Violet tell you all this?” India asked.
“No,” Rhonda said. “Please. Violet is a baby. But she’s a good instructor.”
“All right,” India said. “I’ll go to one class and see.”
“Good. Will you give me a ride?”
India laughed. “Of course.”
“Wear something sexy to class,” Rhonda said as she stood. “I want to see some skin.”
“I’ll see if I have any.”
“Skin?”
“Something sexy. Now go home.”
“I love how gracious you are,” Rhonda said. She kissed India’s forehead. “See you later, gator.”
