This is me. A funky self-portrait of me in our apartment building elevator last Thursday morning. You can’t tell, but I’m full of gratitude and joy at this moment.

You see, on Thursday I got a hair cut. I’ve been toying with the idea of getting my hair cut shorter for the summer, but as I headed across the street to see Claudio, my parrucchiere, I resolved to get the usual. A shoulder length, layered, reliable haircut. But after he washed my hair, as I sat in the chair I said, from some deep down desire, un po’ corte, which means, a bit short. So Claudio gestured to me about how much, I answered Si and then I watched him snip away. I let go of any angst or idea of the results, just watched and waited. It was fun to observe him working, without expectation or worry.

The amazing thing is, I walked out of that salon feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders with that haircut. I was buoyant. For some reason, I needed this hair cut, needed to listen to that little voice inside me called intuition.

Before heading back to the apartment, I was filled with the creative urge to stop at the newsstand to get a couple more magazines for my collage class. So I did, and reveled in the feel of the breeze on my neck and savored picking out the magazines.

I returned to the apartment and grabbed my camera and went to take pictures of the spring flowers under the trees in Parco di Monza, which I had been wanting to do for over a week and kept putting off, and was filled with this wonderful creative energy that hasn’t hit for a while. You can see the result in my blog post from Friday. I was filled with joy, and gratitude for the creativity and playfulness that came upon me, the moment with my camera and the flowers, for a beautiful spring day, for being where I am in life.

In the elevator on my way home, I snapped this picture to see if I could get an interesting shot of my new haircut, and to capture the moment. It came out kind of funky and not what I would consider flattering, so I didn’t think more of it at the time. Saturday I looked at the photo again and it felt different, a little more intriguing, so I played with it a bit to get a retro feel and posted it on Facebook as my profile pic for fun. And that, in turn, sparked interesting comments and creativity from my friends, even a short story starter. I am filled with gratitude and joy that something as simple as an image can turn on people’s imaginations for a moment. That something I created in turn created a little bit of fun in their day, which then reflected back into mine.

So you see, this whole cycle of creativity and gratitude and joy started with me following my intuition with my hair cut. Since that time, I’ve been aware of all these delightful moments that connect one into the next. Ideas are flowing and I just can’t stop them! I’ve found that I need little notebooks everywhere because the ideas keep coming, from all angles, on all topics, and they won’t leave me alone until I record them some where. Maybe it’s because I’m finally listening to that little inner voice, my intuition, and since it has my attention now it doesn’t want to stop talking.

Truly, I am filled with gratitude and joy for it all. This creative energy has been amazing. Now, where’s that notebook? I have a few more things to write down…