One tiny black hair sprouted from my chin a year ago. I have pulled it and plucked it and cut it with tiny nail scissors, and it keeps coming back, like a bad dream. A thin, short hair, darker than any other hair in my possession. And in that single hair lies my personal story of mortality: hormones slipping away daily, sexes becoming indistinguishable, new maintenance routines becoming alarmingly necessary.

Am I turning into my grandmother? The one from Salerno? Or worse, my grandfather? The one from Siena? The hair gods could have at least given me the full, untamable mane of my Italian relatives, but no. I got the English version. Mousy brown and board straight, except when it isn’t. It has a mind of its own, even though I’ve had the same plain bob for most of my life. But the chin!

That hair is no comfort to me. I cannot stroke it deliberately, meaningfully. I cannot twirl it when I contemplate the universe. I do not feel powerful, like a witch or a wizard, which might at least justify its appearance.

No, one tiny hair sprouted from my chin a year ago. And nothing will ever be the same.