Invasion of the Geckos

Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008

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Dear International Living Reader,

Suddenly, they were everywhere.

Geckos by the score. Little green lizards climbing the terrace walls, scuttling under the couch, skittering across the walk, jumping out from under backpacks and boxes.

Suzan and I woke up the other day and, with no warning or obvious reason, our house in Merida had become some kind of gecko Disneyland.

Geckos come with the territory here in the Yucatan, and we like them most of the time. Every house has a few. They keep the bugs down, and they’re fun to watch in the evening when they come out to hunt moths and flies.

But the other morning—I have no idea why—we were suddenly overrun with geckos.

The balance of nature had taken one of its wild swings...and it started me thinking that balance isn’t nature’s “natural” state at all.

Imbalance is what nature is all about. The swings in the natural world...population shifts, shifts in weather and climate, shifts in resources and wealth, shifts in political thought and personal priorities, even shifts in gecko breeding habits...they’re the engines of life. They make the world go around.

If nature ever found a perfect balance in all things and stayed there...nothing would ever happen.

But that’s not the way things are. The patterns of wealth, weather, wisdom, and politics change constantly. And that means that people need the right information and skills to take advantage of and profit from those changing patterns and live a better life.

And providing that information and those skills is exactly what International Living does.

So today I’m celebrating nature’s natural imbalance, because it’s why I have a job.

That may be a lot to get out of a gecko invasion, but you take life’s lessons where you find them.

What happened to the geckos?

Turns out our cat, Sam, is a natural force in his own right.

It took him about two days to clean things up, and by the afternoon of the second day he was actually stacking geckos in little piles on the patio for our approval.

Chalk up another wild swing for the imbalance of nature.

Dan Prescher
Publisher, International Living

P.S. Of course, the best place to get the information and skills you need to ride the swings of natural imbalance to a better, more affordable, more profitable life is International Living magazine. If you’re not already a subscriber, get the details here.