English106-01-03 Introductory Composition

Williams starts out by saying, "Its body lay contorted on the beach like an abandoned lover"(pg.121). Maybe she is saying the beautiful swan is like that because of the helpless, alone state that it's in as it lays on the beach with nothing around it. Williams goes on to describe what, if in human terms, sounds like a seemingly unsolvable murder scene. "There was no blood on its feathers, no sight of gunshot" (pg.121). She then knelt down by the bird, feeling its' limp body and unfolding everything so it lay perfectly flat in the shape of a cross on the beach. It is possible that she is seeing her mother in the dead swan and trying to relate them. After she lays it down, she lays next to it until dawn just thinking about the great heart it must have had, the breaths it took, and the stars it saw (pg.121). It sounds like she is remembering vivid things her mother's life and trying to relate them to the bird.

In the second to last paragraph of the chapter she says, "And I imagined the shimmering Great Salt Lake calling the swans down like a mother..." (pg.120). For birds they are called down by nature near the end of their lives, but for humans it is the opposite; Her mother will be called up by God.
As she leaves the swan at dusk, laid out in the form of a cross, she says she does not look back. I think this is her way of accepting God's plan for her mother (the swan) and is letting her go.

The chapter “Killdeer” is dedicated to a conversation between Terry, her mother and grandmother. Three women discussed the meaning of the life and whether we need to devote our lives to ourselves or to some ones we love. Her mother’s main argument was that we should live each day as richly as we can, not waste our time to long -termed goals and plans. Her own experience made her understand that today, and not yesterday, not tomorrow, is important. We need to live not for ourselves, but for our family, for people we love. However, Terry’s grandmother thinks that we need to live for ourselves; we are not supposed to sacrifice our lives to someone, instead we should enjoy our own lives. May be she thinks so because she was not so close to death like her daughter was? But she is also old, so she understands that soon she will pass away. Probably, it is just different people and different attitude toward the life. It is like Terry gave an example of cup with coffee inside: someone will see beautiful Chinese service, others will think about how it was possible to create such amazing thing like cup and somebody will notice the coffee trace on the rim of the cup. Terry said that we need to not afraid of anything and face the life directly. Her mother’s strength and her grandmother’s old age influenced on her. Her view on the life was shaped by the influence of these two women in her life, who took care of her since her birth.
In the next chapter Terry most likely compares Tamra who just passed away and the dead swan that she found on the shore. How gorgeous that swan was and then how unexpectedly it departed this life; like those people who even do not expect anything bad happen to them, but then suddenly they pass on.
These chapters made me think about my own life, about my goals. Isn’t it possible that we will not awake tomorrow? In heaven we will not need money or career and other things that we are trying to achieve now. The only thing that we and our families will still share are memories of the days that we were together, happy moments with people we love. So it is important to get pleasure from the life right now, from this amazing gift that we have.

Terry finds this dead swan and knells by the bird. She notices that the bird is still limp and from that she knows the bird hasn't been dead for long. She describes laying the bird out flat, first she opens up the wings and lays them on the shore, then she describes how she has to untangle the swan's neck and lays the chin on the sand. She washes the bill and feet of the bird with her saliva until it "shone like leather" Terry is experiencing the death of this bird, which I would assume she felt an attachment to make this bird look beautiful even in its death. She didn't know anything about the death or the time that passed, but she tries to imagine the time before the bird's death and how it got there. She tries to imagine what the bird had felt before its death, how it felt in its separation. From this story I see that Terry will ultimatly have to face the death of her mother and grandmother's death. As she did with the bird, she will remember the times of them, but since she knows them she'll remember times together. She'll be along side her mother's death bed and try to make her mother beautiful one last time after she passes. As she did with the bird, she'll have to give her mother a proper burial. (121)

At the beginning of the reading, Terry Tempest Williams again compares her mothers health with the Great Salt Lake flood situation- 'Mother's health seems to be stable.', 'Great Salt Lake seems to be stable'. I think by this she is trying to say that both her mother and the lake are 'sick', but the 'sickness' has not worsened or gotten better. 'Sickness' in terms of the lake means the flooding, the water level of the lake has neither increased, nor decreased, hence the lakes 'sickness' is stable as is her mothers illness.
The next part of the reading talks about how 'sick' the population of birds has become. The population of birds has been decreasing over the years and it has been decreasing at an even greater rate since the flooding of the great salt lake. The writer mentions that it would take quite a while for the lake to dry out and an even longer time after that for the soil to reach normal salt concentration levels, I think that the writer is worried about this fact because she thinks that the birds will die out soon just like her mother.
The thought of the birds' dieing out is also very emotional to the writer beause I think that the writer considers the birds as her own children, 'using my own saliva as my mother and grandmother had done to wash my face, I washed the swan's black bill and feet until they shone like patent leather'. Her mother keeps hinting at her how much she would like to hold her own grandchild, but the writer always manages to change the subject. However, I think the writer herself does want a child but just does not think she is ready for such a big responsibility. She uses the birds as a substitute for her own children, she cares for them and loves them and would be very hurt to lose both her mother and her 'children'.

Williams is coming to terms with her mother's inevitable death through her ritual with the swan. She starts out by describing that there has been a storm on the Great Salt Lake and it is not like any other day. This describes the caos her life has been in since she found out that her mother has cancer once again. She is very straight-forward when she finds the swan, "It was a dead swan." (121) She does not ease around the idea that it is dead. She just says it bluntly. Death is final and that is it. She treats the swan like a human by taking off her gloves, smoothing it out, and placing the stones on its eyes. I assume that she is thinking about her mother while she is doing this. She is imagining it to be her mother and her funeral. "At dusk, I left the swan like a crucifix on the sand. I did not look back." (122) The crucifix reminds me of the ceremonies of someone's funeral. The fact that she did not look back means that she needs to keep moving forward. Even after her mother's death she will still have to go on with her own life.