Hoping So

I spent the weekend with a group of dear writer friends at Poland Spring Campground in Maine. My friend, Tamra Wight, owns the campground and she has a brand-new book out, Cooper and Packrat: Mystery at Pine Lake.


Tami in the campground office with her book. Photo by Mona Pease.

On Saturday we wrote or sketched, and then we met in the afternoon to share our writing/art with each other. I read the first chapter of the book I just submitted on proposal, and when I finished, there was a moment of silence and then one of my friends reached over and touched my arm.  "Does it rub off?" she asked.  So it went well. :-)

I also thought a lot about Half A Chance (my novel that comes out at the end of February), because I used three lakes/ponds for details in the book, and Tami's pond was one of them.

On Sunday morning, I woke up and checked the time for sunrise. It was only about 20 minutes away, so I got dressed quickly and asked my friend, Mona, if she wanted to jump in the kayaks and see the sun come up over the pond with me. One of many things I love about Mona is that she is an adventurer. "Let me get my camera," she said.



Out kayaking, I was thinking about how it might be my last chance to be on a lake until spring and wishing I could see a loon one more time.

And then, there they were.



The water was warmer than the air, so there was a beautiful mist everywhere.



There were bits of down and feathers all over the lake. The loon are changing from their summer black and white to winter gray. I'd never seen them molting, so it was interesting to see them "in process."



We just sat and watched them preening and plucking out bits of down.



Since I don't think I'll see them again until spring, I kept thinking of the scene in Half a Chance where the last loon leaves the lake in the fall.  Here's an excerpt:


This time, watching him through my camera, I knew something was different. He kept stretching his wings, over and over. Getting ready.
I could barely breathe as he started running on the water. Faster and faster his feet slapped the surface, his wings pumping.

I took one photo and then put my camera down, wanting to share our last seconds without anything between us. He took to the air, pumping his wings hard. Leaving the water behind him, he circled the lake to gain speed. “Safe journey!” I called to him. “From Grandma Lilah and me.”

And there was nothing but sky.

Tears slid down my face. Would he really know where to go? And even if he did, so many miles and dangers stood between him going to the sea and coming back to find his own territory one day. Would he make it?

Sometimes you don’t get an answer, though. Sometimes “I hope so” is the only answer you get.

. . .

I imagined him in the sky, seeing the world as I’d seen it from the top of Cherry Mountain. Blue upon blue mountains ahead, a carpet of trees below, the long curling rivers between the lakes, and somewhere far ahead, that huge ocean.

It must take some courage to fly, to trust the wind to hold you as it lifts you away from all you’ve ever known. To know inside that you’re heading where you’re meant to go — even if you’ve never been there before.

And that “I hope so” will be enough to get you there.