Viva l'Italia!

Here I am, along with my 13 month old daughter, visiting our adopted family in Italy. It is gorgeous, warm, lush and green, and I am so thankful to be here. There were minutes, ok, hours and maybe even a day or two, of stress before leaving to prepare for the trip. The washing machine broke, there were a million things to do, buy, and pack (visions of the ever fashionable and elegant Italians dancing in my head), and I had an overwhelming desire to spend quality time with my (slightly brooding and with good reason) partner before our departure.

Then we got to the airport. One umbrella stroller, laptop, videocamera, car seat and army sized backpack later, and we were off. There was the usual stuff that we are all used to since 9-11-...take off your shoes, pull out the liquids, xray the stroller, the laptop, and remove all bracelets and anything else that is metal... I forgot to take out baby's Ibuprofen (she could sprout a tooth in flight, you never know, and can't be too careful!) which triggered a bag search. We had a plane change in NY and as we were ready for take off had to change planes (something about the entertainment system not working). My stroller had been checked. It was not possible to carry everything and the baby. Did I mention she weighs 23 lbs? Blessings be to the wonderful ladies who helped me carry the carseat! There was a moment of sheer panic though: what will I do?

Through the entire trip preparation experience there were times of dear God, how will I pull this off? An interesting thing began to happen. Despite being completely consumed with the task at hand, there was a small voice that kept recurring in my mind, saying "what if my setpoint was love?"

Indeed, what a good question. What if I just dropped it all right here and reset myself, like a watch, to love o'clock?

In the moment, I will say, sometimes it helped. A deep breath, a returning to center, a dismissal of the annoyance as not worth the energy, a move towards Zen. Other times, I ignored the voice, the inner calling to reset and move towards love, and guess what? Those were the times it didn't work. I was not cool as a cucumber. I was not as gracious as I would like to have been. No Jackie O here. I was not in my best self, I could feel it, and worse yet, so could my little one.

Now that I am settled in and have shed the jet lag and the hubbaloo of trip preparations is a distant memory, I return to this idea of my setpoint being love. It's a wonderful concept, because it so aptly describes how we get off center, we lose our way, and have to come back, reboot, regroup, and realign. It happens continually, it's a natural process. But to catch it midstream, and surrender! Now there is the point of power. It's the pausing to consider whether the harsh word really does any good to the speedster who just scared the beejesus out of you, if cramming down a second slice of cake is really in your best interests of feeling good about yourself, and stopping snarky spiky words from launching out of your mouth when you really just want to scream and strangle simultaneously.

There is an interesting thing to be noted about setpoints. The more you set them, the easier it becomes to maintain the set point. It is a concept well known in the diet world, and I am sure there are many other fabulous examples out there. And so, each time I choose love over not love, it becomes easier to stay at that calm, connected and effortless space and also to return to it. A delightful and tangible concept.

Now I'd like a set point for gelato.