Timesharing

August 21, 2007

I colored my hair the other day. Really. It’s a stylish and attractive red that is at once dashing and ‘interesting’. I was trying for blond, but the makeup of my hair and the worry that accompanied putting chemicals on my head probably conspired to limit the colorant’s effectiveness.

Needless to say, now I am supporting the home-town team with the color of my hair. But that’s not the topic of today’s post…sharing time is.

Directly related to the hair-color experiment was my anticipation of the reaction to my new hair by people and work and by family. Right now I’m safe because Mum doesn’t read this blog so she won’t know about my hair until she sees it this Friday at dinner. And that will be in front of lots of dinner guests so I’m predicting she won’t make a scene. 🙂

Continuing, I really thought people at work would be vocal and demonstrative when they saw my hair. They weren’t.

Maybe this comes from my persona at the office (I’m freelancing for Brookstone right now, but have other clients regularly where the same image is projected), one where I’m friendly and open-minded and sharing. People may have stopped being surprised by my stories or actions…or maybe my hair is hideous and they’re too afraid to say anything because they care about my feelings.

It’s probably none of the above. They probably didn’t even notice. In the same way it takes people about three months to realize a coworker is pregnant, a simple hair-color change isn’t that significant.

Furthermore, people are self-focused to an extreme. They project their feelings and thoughts on others and infrequently stop to take in the whole picture. I’m trying to be different. It’s not some sort of kharmatic change, just an occasional reminder to myself that life is going on all around us and we should take notice.

In an effort to do so, I stopped at the beach today and took this photo…

And better than just taking the photo, I stood and breathed in the sea air and just smiled. I thought about the sun and other people and perceptions and our busy lives. Then I realized that it wasn’t the color that I had outside my head that mattered, it was the spectrum of thoughts that were going on inside my skull. And those I choose to share.

More to come…