On Disappearing

In her poem “The Traveling Onion”, Naomi Shihab Nye praises the onion for its “small forgotten miracles”, its “layers of smooth agreement” and for how the onion “falls apart on the chopping block”—all of which is “a history revealed.”

Nye writes, “…I would never scold an onion / for causing tears to fall” since tears need to fall for things “small and forgotten,” before noting how when we sit to eat stew, to which the onion has been added, we notice and comment on other ingredients—and not the onion “now limp, now divided.”

The poem ends with the lines, “For the sake of others, / disappear.”

I love the implication! And I love how this poem reminds us how lovely and necessary disappearing can be.

Sure, it can seem an unsettling prospect, easy as it is to want to be seen, to be known, to be me.

Yet, how can we know the flavor of others and how can our lives and our world become a savory stew, if we are always holding back by trying to be something, someone—anything, anyone? Don’t we have to give ourselves to life to learn what comes next? And for us to be as we truly—and somehow and already—are?

We can be so afraid of disappearing. But why? Do we really think disappearing is the end?

I don’t believe so. Not when disappearing in the way Nye recommends allows me or you or anyone to be transformed into fullness.