The Quarantine Cut
It took a pandemic and a buzzcut for me to finally let go.
At the start of the pandemic, I shaved half my head. When I was younger, I watched Natalie Portman’s character in V for Vendetta have her hair buzzed off and her identity stripped away, only to come back stronger at the end of it all. I viewed a shaved head as an act of defiance, of owning one’s selfhood so entirely that even the eye of society can’t change who you are.
How powerful would it feel to buzz my hair down to one short layer? I was too chicken to make the cut — until the world shut down.
I figured, with everything on hold and every bit of normalcy torn away from me, now was as good a time as any. The hair would grow back, and I would emerge from isolation knowing what it felt like to take matters into my own hands.
That’s how I ended up in the bathroom with my husband’s clippers, standing on an old beach towel from our days in San Diego, staring at my overgrown A-line and picturing myself without it.
This isn’t really about the hair.
Jiu jitsu tears you apart. It twists your tendons, wrecks your muscles, bruises your bones. It’s exhilarating and humiliating. It’s challenging and meditative. It rips your hair out at the roots, from fingers reaching for a rear-naked choke and…
