Our very good guide on the walking tour on the Cinque Terre was Alejandro Gullo.  He allowed us to call him Alex.

Alex is one of ten children and he and his wife have seven of their own.  Between his brothers and sisters they have 35 or 40 cousins.  Even if everybody is filled with goodwill all of these interactions cause some interesting dynamics.  Alex called the study of the relationships in his family “Gullo Dynamics” and he claimed to be the worlds expert.  There are dynamics in our small family and in our circle of friends and although we haven’t given them a name yet we have enjoyed thinking about the “Gullo Dynamics” of the various groups.   It is helping me be a bit more objective.

At Ankor Wat in Cambodia many years ago we had a guide named Tim who had a very calming walk.  In our family “Walking like Tim” is a code for calming down.  Gullo Dynamics has the same potential.    It can be code for “be objective”.  Another example came from Captain Wiley, a terrific Colorado River guide, we had in the Grand Canyon about five years ago.  Wiley used the expression “have a drink of water” as code for don’t get to testy.  And now we do too.

See all of my posts about Italy 2010