Part 5 –Sunday, 11.29.15 (still-and not-so still)
‘Tis darkness that approaches.
I chop onions, a lot. Some times for the taste, most times for their smell. Very often, I let the scent linger on my fingers for hours, inhaling, breathing deeply, intending through my senses and my skin, to absorb their allium super-food-properties, their tantalizing aroma, their promise.
I’m making pizza. Really. Frozen cheese pizza, with the addition of home-grown tomatoes, (even after not growing a garden this year I received volunteers, in a life-defying shady spot, climbing on my defunct swimming pool ladder…are they trying to send me a message?), plus super-food mushrooms (packed into a can); plus pineapple (grown in some tropical place a million miles away, but carved-by-me-fresh(!), and, oh yeah, the onion.
I barely make a dent in the big, giant onion after topping my pizza. I never buy small onions. (Is that a statement, or an act of surplus/security, or do I just think way too much about stuff?)
I manage to get most of the rest of the onion into my (one!) suitable plastic storage container. Most of the onion.
What do I do with the rest of the rest of the onion? I ask the onion…I have an actual conversation with the onion. I come to terms with the onion. I have to come to terms with the onion. The onion talks back.
It really doesn’t matter, the onion says. I am built on layers. Layers of protection. We onions keep well. Put me away until another day. I’ll be here when you’re ready.
My issue is my layers. That and my storage capabilities. Temporary; short shelf life. Thin layers, unprotected from the elements, today and tomorrow. How long will my onion last?
Okay, time to turn off the electricity, the cooking element, the heat and the fire. I’m done, now. And so is my pizza. I hope I didn’t burn the onion.