I am dry. I think I will be brittle soon. I am letting my hair grow long, and I don’t want to color it. I want to sit on a rock until the sun goes down; sit as still as a basking lizard, with eyes like slits and a body that changes color to blend with the rock. I want to face the wind. I want to make peace with my aloneness.

I remember my grandmother. She had hair to her knees, long and straight, and even into her eighties, it was streaked black and silver. She wore it in a bun at the nape of...