Maisy and Caroline both looked at her and beamed. Tucker winked at her, then said, “Maisy?”
The group of students was an eclectic crowd of a dozen people and included a doctor and wife from Dallas and an attorney and his son from Fort Worth. There was a fourth-grade teacher, a sales rep, and an engineer who worked for NASA, a man who owned a car dealership in East Texas, and a widowed grandmother of six whose late husband had played middle linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys. The middle-aged couple from the Texas Panhandle proudly declared themselves preppers-in-training, and the wife asked Gillian where she could get a Girls Getting Grubby T-shirt.
“You’ll be able to order them through the store on the Enchanted Canyon Wilderness School’s website in a few weeks,” Gillian assured her.
Tucker frowned. “Um, Gillian, we don’t have a store on our website.”
“You will,” she fired back. “Poor planning on your part not to have one.”
“Hey, that’s not my job,” he said with a defensive note in his voice. “That’s office related, so that’s all on Boone.” For the benefit of those that didn’t know the McBrides, he added an explanation. “He’s one of our partners. I’m the guy in charge of fieldwork, which is a nice little segue. Let’s get to it, shall we? Everybody find a seat, and I’ll explain how the day is going to work.”
Tucker broke the weekend into seven sections, beginning with Survival Mentality and Priorities and ending with Land Navigation and Lost Prevention. “Our purpose here this weekend is to teach you life-enhancing skills that will make you feel comfortable in the outdoors and give you a richer experience when you get out of the cities and suburbs and commune with Mother Nature. The goal is that you’ll leave here tomorrow afternoon feeling more competent and confident with new skills to practice when you’re not in the middle of an emergency. Okay? Everybody ready?”
“Let’s do it,” called the engineer.
Tucker nodded and went to stand in front of his whiteboard. He picked up a marker saying, “So, let’s jump right in. Your life is at risk. Your survival is under threat. You are in a high-stress situation where resources are not normal. What are you going to do?”
“Probably pee my pants,” Maisy jokingly offered.
Tucker, however, took her serious. “Fear is actually an important survival skill. The trick is to use fear as a tool to keep you safe and not as a barrier that holds you back.”
Caroline leaned toward Gillian and whispered, “That sounds like something Celeste Blessing would say.”
“Remember that in a survival situation, your brain is the most important tool in your toolbox,” Tucker continued. “We are not the fastest or strongest creatures on the planet, but human intelligence gives us an advantage—as long as we use it and don’t let our primal mind take over and make decisions based on emotion rather than logic. Survival often depends on the ability to keep a cool head. So, here we are, the zombie apocalypse is approaching. Your primal mind might be telling you to turn around and run like hell. You need to listen to your lizard brain, but you shouldn’t act on it.”
He used a black marker to draw a number one on the whiteboard and then wrote the words: Calm down. Determine your need and develop a solution. Aloud, he said, “I have a problem. I need to fix it. How? A little later we will get into the survival triangle and learn about need priority, but for now, I want you to think about this. Life is full of all sorts of survival situations, some more life threatening than others. Fear of public speaking is the same fear as being eaten by a lion. This survival rule helps in all sorts of situations. Collect yourself, identify the problem, and think about how you’re going to fix it. Don’t simply react or make an impulsive decision because impulsive decisions often make matters worse.”
Listening to Tucker, Gillian’s thoughts returned to that morning at breakfast. The moment her gaze had landed on Jeremy, her blood had run cold. She’d reacted impulsively and turned around and hid in the bathroom until he left, which only made matters worse because his mother was in the restaurant too, and she saw her do it. By now, Mary Ann Jones undoubtedly had spread the news all over town and made Gillian look pathetic.
“Any questions?” Tucker asked. When no one responded, he continued. “Okay, then, next.”
He wrote the number two on his board along with the words: Continually work to improve your circumstances. “I call this the extra blanket phenomenon. Have you ever been camping or lying in bed in the dead of winter or even napping on the couch beneath an air-conditioner vent in July and you’re cold? There’s a blanket nearby that would improve your circumstance if you’d only get up and get it.”
“But it’s too much work to get up and get it, so you stay cold?” asked the car dealer.
“Exactly. It’s too much work, or you’re too lazy or too comfortable to roust yourself out of bed to get the extra blanket. As a result, you don’t sleep well. You’re not comfortable. Survival rule number two is to empower yourself as a problem solver, not a sit-around-and-whiner. Get up and get yourself another blanket. If something’s not working, fix it. Work to improve your circumstance.”
Okay, Gillian thought, that one could apply to relationships too.
“Third, don’t make your situation any worse.”
“That’s pretty obvious,” Maisy said.
“It is,” Tucker agreed with a nod. “But it’s also easy to do. Act on emotion instead of logic, and you might end up—”
Hiding in a bathroom, Gillian thought.
“Jumping from the proverbial frying pan into the fire. Attitude is vital. Start feeling overwhelmed or sorry for yourself or lose your cool, and things can go south fast. If you convince yourself you’re going to die, you’ll die. Decide you are going to live, and your chances of staying alive are a whole lot better.”
“Wilderness karma,” observed the teacher.
“Life karma,” Gillian offered. “Honestly, Tucker, everything you’ve said applies to everyday life, everyday relationships.” Where were you two months ago?
He flashed her a grin and nodded. “Most everything we’ll discuss this weekend comes back to common sense and preparation. Utilizing those two things will carry you a long way toward your goal, whether it’s surviving the zombie apocalypse or navigating your way through, I don’t know, say, planning a wedding. Caroline, you’re planning a wedding now. How do you deal with it when you’re feeling overwhelmed?”
“That’s easy,” Caroline said with a laugh. “I call Gillian. She is the planning pro. She takes care of everything.”
Tucker grinned at Gillian. “All right, then, pro. What do you do when the zombies are bearing down upon you from every direction?”
“I focus on the task in front of me and work on solving one problem at a time.”
He nodded approvingly. “Exactly. Do that, and you’ll hold the zombies at bay. When you get in a tight spot, battle against the desire to feel sorry for yourself. Relish your victories, no matter how small, and do your best to keep your sense of humor. It’s amazing how much maintaining a bit of irony can help in desperate situations.”