The Quarantine Cut

It took a pandemic and a buzzcut for me to finally let go.

Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash

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…