During my travels in India, this woman drew me into an encounter and began showing me photographs and possessions from her life. One was an earlier photograph of herself, when she had long hair.

Then she brought out a green bowl. Inside was her own hair—the long hair she had kept from that earlier time.

She continued to share pieces of her past with me. Finally, she showed me a portrait of her husband, who had died.

I had not asked her to assemble these things or tell her story for my camera. She chose what she wanted me to see. In the course of a brief encounter, she shared something of her youth, something she had physically preserved from that time, and the memory of the man with whom she had shared her life.