As I’m listening to the grinding, hoping that the crunches I’m hearing are not one of my rings or a spoon or the sponge, I heard my father, who died almost ten years ago, reminding me about the dangers of onions in the garbage disposal. Then I remembered, no, he didn’t mean white onions; he meant green onions. From there, I faded to my first apartment, a newlywed, cooking one of my first dinners. I plunged my hand in the sink full of soapy water and came up with a bloody thumb, my bloody thumb. Drops of blood rained from my hand, pelting the frothy soap bubbles.
Then, I saw myself in a picture taken the night my father surprised my mother with her first (and only) mink stole. Thirty-three years ago.She was the last in her trio of friends to own a mink. It was, to her, a luxurious article she thought she would never own.
My father was wearing a suit. They were going out to dinner. My mother, so astonished, she’s actually covering her open mouth with both hands. Even though she has been dead now for fifteen years, I heard the echo of her saying, “Oh, Johnny. You shouldn’t have.” The unspoken “…but I am so thrilled you did” conveyed by the lilt in her voice and the delight in her eyes.
I flicked the disposal off. With its stopping, so did the swish of memories, like Ezra Pound’s, “In a Station at the Metro”: The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet black bough. Pound himself said of his “image poem”:
“I dare say it is meaningless unless one has drifted into a certain vein of thought. In a poem of this sort one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective.”
Who knew sending onions down a garbage disposal would bring me to my parents? It was a moment; their petal faces on the wet black bough of memory. And my first thought, as I hurriedly dried my hands, was to look for a pen and my notebook. To capture what I could remember; to not lose my parents and this unexpected gift of them in the ordinary drudgery of dishwasher loading and towel folding and paper grading.
This, I believe, is why I write. It’s what makes me a writer. It’s what leads me to the keyboard, to the journal, to the notebook. God can set in motion the most mysterious workings to lead me to the most precious thoughts, but I have to show up. I have to pay attention. I have to trust that even onions can lead to joy.
(previously posted…)
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