This is primarily a Star Trek Voyager Fan Fiction site. Most of the stories revolve around the relationship between Captain Kathryn Janeway and her First Officer, Commander Chakotay. There is a connection with a turtle though, really. Okay, it's tenuous at best.

   The name Terrapin Point resonates for me for a number of reasons. First, it’s a part of my childhood. I grew up within a few miles of Terrapin Point. In the real world, it is located between the American part of Niagara Falls called Bridal Veil Falls and the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. It’s a yin yang kind of place: safe, yet dangerous; poised between two countries and between two waterfalls; solid and enduring, as stone is. Yet the water of the Falls condemns the Point's existence to only the briefest period, geologically speaking. It will be undercut and fall crashing to the base of Horseshoe Falls, as its predecessor, Prospect Point did when I was a child. I remember leaning on the railings thinking this, feeling the pull of the mighty Niagara, feeling poised between realities, possibly a heartbeat from oblivion. This place was a portal to my imagination.

   Years later, for some reason, the turtle has decided to become my symbol. I can't explain it, it just happened. It probably harkens back to all the times my Mother told me I was slower than molasses in January. At any rate, it fits and I'm happy with it. The terrapin is a land turtle, drawn to rivers and lakes. I, too love the water. I admire, respect and am in awe of the oceans, but it is fresh water that I resonate to. It is a wild river that makes my heart leap.

   The wildest river to me, and the most elusive, is the one above my head. The Milky Way runs like a river, hidden in pollution to all but the luckiest, pouring and leaping across the sky.

   And if one trys very hard, one can leap from the land to the sky, one dimension to another through the portal of the imagination. (I told you this would be tenuous ;-D)

   So, come with me, step through the portal. I am your guide, Turltlewoman. (Uh..no..neither one of these people is me. I'm smaller, greener, harder shelled, other than that I look just like the woman.)

      

   Most of you can ignore this part, but for a few of you.... Thank you Mary, Diane and Ruth for your teaching and encouragement and Carolee for your patience. A special thank you to my dear neighbors for hosting me and getting me started. Special hugs to my sweet DH for getting a kick out of this, for encouraging, explaining, occasionally fixing, but never taking over.