We’re a highly specialized bunch, it’s adapt or die here, and adapt we do. We develop skills and equipment to manage our extreme environment, always looking for the next breakthrough. We’re capable and savvy, though a bit more fierce than most civilized populations.
In the Welcome to Holland poem, the comparison is Italy to Holland, but if you were planning a trip to Italy, imagine how woefully unprepared you would be in the jungle. Even for us, planning another trip to Arizona, would be completely lacking in equipment and skills for the actual journey we’re on.
That’s where this analogy differs from the Holland analogy. This isn’t a trip that we’re fairly well prepared for, this is being dropped into a place where we don’t have the knowledge, skill set or equipment to survive, we have to ad lib the whole thing; our only skill set is improvisation and the will to survive.
The most implausible part of it all is that we actually succeed at it; by sheer determination, fueled by passion and love.
Originally published on Ben’s Writing, Running Mom. Alethea lives with her family in a cabin in the woods where she spends her time puttering around in nature with her kids Hannah, Alex and Ben; husband Mike; and dogs Abbi and Meg. She writes about parenting, parenting kids with special needs, her dogs, running, gardening and whatever floats her boat at the moment. You can find her on Facebook or at Ben’s Writing, Running Mom.
