Escaping captivity

I am swimming across a vast, threatening channel.

The water is cold and dark.

The current moves me more than I manage to move across it.

I see lights at the far shore, appearing just when I need to see them the most.

I swim, and swim, and swim, until I just need to rest.

I just need to close my eyes against the tide, and the force that pulls at me.

And then I wake and I fight to keep swimming,

because that is all that I can do to stay afloat.

I cannot go under.

I allow myself to dream of the shore and that safety.

I was there, once.

I left the shore, and the warmth of safety on my own accord.

And, now, having become immersed in the dark channel between that time

—the shore; warmth; life; people—

and another life, I know that to keep swimming is the only way.

The closer I feel I may be getting to the safety of the shore,

the more deeply I feel the deep

reaching to pull me under

and to rally it’s monsters to converge at my back

and devour me wholly.

I am lost at sea.

I am missing in place.

I am racing to freedom from my captor.

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Photo: "Nikki & Joy Caroling"

This more recent photo of me with Joy is from the office Christmas photo this past Christmas (2004). We had three dogs total in the picture. I cropped everybody else out so I could get a close up, but this picture was awesome! We were all caroling in front of the court house in Auburn.

New Start

Ok, I'm starting off with light, silly stuff. Or, I did. My first post on this blog was a poem I wrote in 1989, when I'd just met the man who would become my husband. Hah! I've not seen him since 1992, and I had not looked at that poem in years, either, but I do like the poem. Life changed for me recently, for the better. I closed the book on a long, drawn-out struggle with "the ex" as I refer to him, which makes people think we were married, though we never were. We were together for nearly eight years, however. Parting was not a sweet sorrow. It was, in fact, neither sweet, nor a sorrow. I left behind a lot of relationships with both people and animals I loved. Not because I wanted to, but because those were the limitations set forth. All in a day, things were.. over . Believe me, I'd like to rant and rave here about the victimizations he perpetrated. But, I am not going to slouch into that same state in which he exists. I won't. I will say

I will remember

I will remember you. All the things that lead us To that moment in my life That broke old shackles; That started new patterns; That awoke the sleeping wolf. We do not need promises. Your gift to me was that moment. Your gift to me was everything that led to that moment. I look at you and feel alive, In a way I had been dead for years. You show me who you are, I know this. I know our moment was just that; a moment. And just as I have left men with moments In my younger years, I hold on to ours, now. You unchained the wolf. And she walks free, and proud, and ready. -- Nico Holmes

Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

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