Bangs From an Old Photo

The photo turned up last night when a classmate posted graduation pictures in the class chat: in one of them you have those very bangs, almost like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, a chunky-knit sweater and the face of someone with their whole life ahead of them. The logic builds itself: bring back the bangs and everything else comes back too, including the expression, so by mid-morning you're sitting under the cape with your phone in hand like a project brief 📸

🌗 Mid-morning Venus turns around and will travel backward until mid-November. In astrology she looks after beauty, taste and everything we love, and her backward stretch is traditionally considered a bad moment for bold haircuts. It shows up recognizably: along with the bangs you want back the song from tenth grade and a perfume discontinued long ago.

The hairdresser, an experienced person, looks at the photo, then at you, and asks the only question that matters: “And will you be styling it every morning?” That question actually holds the whole difference between graduation and today: back then styling got forty minutes and your mom's hair dryer, now it gets three minutes between the kettle and the elevator, plus a hat that decides your hairstyle from October on.

Late in the afternoon the Moon reaches its last quarter, and by evening Saturday feels like sorting through old drawers: graduation, the song, the perfume and the bangs you either got or backed out of just in time. The photo, meanwhile, has already been forwarded to a friend captioned “remember?”, and for the next two hours it's voice messages only 🎙

Bring back the bangs and everything else comes back too, including the expression.