This piece was originally written about the experience of having a disabled child, but it definitely applies to being the disabled person, as well:

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Emily Perl Kingsley 1987



I've had people ask why I don't just move to Italy, or insist repeatedly that we are, in fact, in Italy, and I am not to say anything at all about Holland, despite all the tulips and windmills all around us.  I've even been told that I must want to be in Holland, since I'm admiring the tulips....



Speaking of growing things--not much happening here.  I've been watering plants outside first thing in the morning before it gets uncomfortable outside.  I leave water outside for the wild animals.  It's getting hotter every day here again, and no rain.  Because of the extremely mild winter and early spring, our apple tree started the season drooping with more apples than I've ever seen.  Until now.  All of the little apples are falling off.  The ground is covered with them.  We are really experiencing a drought now.  At least our little foresty (spellcheck is not the boss of me) island is green.

We've been stuck here all week, but we've had at least a little fun.  There was a Star Trek:  The Next Generation marathon on TV yesterday which I managed to watch parts of.

We have an old camper in our yard that's hooked up to electric that the girls spend time in.  It even has an old TV with no reception hooked up to an old VCR.  It's like another room in the house, which with six people we can definitely use.  Yesterday I was watering plants and innocently called one of the girls and when she opened the door, I let her have it.



I am really bored.  So bored I'm grateful for housework.

Think I'll go play the piano and go through some more clutter.