Holland

David Roth, Irreconcilable Similarities, Wind River Records, 1997

“Welcome to Holland,” a 1987 essay by Emily Perl Kingley inspired this song.  She described the experience of raising a differently-abled child.

We planned a trip to Italy

We got so darn excited

We bought a bunch of guidebooks

And we learned a phrase or two

We packed our bags and off we went

Directly for the airport

As prepared as we could be

For something altogether new

We’d mapped out all the prime locations

Rome, Milan, and Florence

We connected to our agent

About nine months in advance

We knew this trip would change our lives

We went to classes, husbands, wives

We didn’t want to leave one thing to chance

But when we landed

We were in Holland

Italy is what we had in mind

This was not what we’d come all this way to find

We couldn’t change it

We got our baggage

And we began a trip we never in a million years

Could have imagined

We got our footing quickly though

It wasn’t time to take things slow

We went and got new guidebooks

And we learned a whole new language

We met people who we never knew

Existing here in Holland

Reluctant as we were

With all these unexpected changes

Nowadays we still see everybody all around us

Busy coming and going off to Italy as planned

They’re all bragging what a great time

And they pass around their pictures

And we smile and say “your trip sounds very grand”

And when we’re honest

We’re exhausted

As we walk the streets of now-familiar towns

A different dream is what we’ve landed here and found

But we have tulips

And we have Rembrandts

And we remember not everyone will know

Such different kinds of beauty…such beauty