Held Captive

A Prisoner In My Own Life

My apologies to all my readers and friends regarding my tardiness and reading habits. I haven't been able to read or comment on a lot of your blogs because life is conspiring against me these days and robbing me of most of my free time. Which means less time to read most of your exceptional and witty blogs about your unique and sometimes peculiar slant on life. I hope to get back into the swing and catch up by sometime in mid-September when things will hopefully start to cool down.

Currently, my life is consumed with covering jobs in my office that have been vacated due to the economic crisis in my state. The other all-consuming project right now is my preparations for the Burning Man festival at the end of this month. These preparations have taken on a life of their own. Having to coordinate getting 4 people and all their stuff from here to there (about 1500 miles) is quite the undertaking. And the geodesic dome project that I plan to take with me has been much more of a project than I had originally envisioned. Hopefully, you will get to read all about it when we get back. These two obstacles along with a slew of other day to day issues make for very lean blogging times.

So it appears that I am a prisoner of my own making. I don't have to work at my job, nor do I have to attend Burning Man, but I suppose I am more of a 'doer' than a slacker. At least I like to think so. But it raises the question that we are all prisoner of the lives that we have created for ourselves. Here is a case in point that brings home that concept.

I took the day off on Monday (8/17/09) to work on my dome project. One of my other projects is the maintenance of small park in our historic neighborhood called the 'triangles'. During my day off I had turned on the sprinklers at the triangles since the city has seen fit to stop watering the area due to budget cuts and the grass was dying.

At the end of the day, I was walking the 5th of a mile to the triangles to shut off the water when I heard someone yelling for help. I looked to my right and there was an elderly woman, maybe in her 60s, standing behind the iron screen front door of a house that bordered the triangles. I approached her and asked her what the problem was. She stated that she was locked inside the house and couldn't get out. (She was holding a mallet and screwdriver and appeared to have been trying to pound out the metal screen on the dead bolted front door.)

When I asked why she couldn't leave through the garage or other door she indicated that she was being held against her will by a strange man and was a prisoner. Well, that brought out my cell phone and I dialed 911 and explained the situation as I knew it up that point to the 911 operator. The police showed up within about 30 seconds (3 squad cars in all). One officer started talking to the woman through the door while another took me aside and questioned me. I told him the story and he indicated that they were already en-route when I had called 911. Someone (possibly a neighbor) had called for a welfare check of the resident. The officer indicated that the woman in the house may have mental issues and that I didn't need to stay and was free to go. I turned off the water to the triangles an walked home.

Now I am left with the nagging question. Was this woman a victim of dementia / Alzheimer's and locked in her own home by her husband / caregiver for her own safety or was she really being held captive by some deranged fiend for the past 2 years. Neither option made me feel very good. Either way, she was being held captive, either in her own mind, or by someone else. I might never know the end of the story. Whenever I go to do some work at the triangles, I look at that house and search for answers, that I will probably never get.