Unpeeled
We don’t tell everyone everything. Even ourselves.
I’ve been thinking about layers, how we are, each of us, thickly layered humans, each layer formed from the passage of time—like rings in a tree—the result of events and people, the sediment of experiences, relationships that nurture, relationships that wound, births, deaths, you know.
I am not wise enough to say anything meaningful about how one remembers or rediscovers or relearns what is at the core, underneath all those layers, how one unpeels oneself. Tom did this, I think, as he prepared to die. It is solitary work. I observed it from the outside: How he sat in the sun on the front porch, face tilted upward. How he sat on the back deck listening to the birds. How he fell asleep mid-afternoon with a worn copy of Lao Tzu opened across his lap.
What was happening inside I do not know. But I know that when he sat on the edge of the bed we had set up in the living room when going up stairs became too much, when he sat there in his jeans and the gray plaid wool shirt I bought him that was always one of my favorites, when he sat there and took the medication, he was a different man. He had come to a place of knowing. He was unpeeled.
Before that, in our lives together, in the layers he unpeeled for me and I for him over the years, there were, I now know—of course I knew then–oh-so-many unpeeled layers. I shielded him, and myself, from intermittent doubts about who we were, and I am sure he did the same. We hid parts of ourselves for all kinds of reasons, for no reasons, maybe when we didn’t even know we were doing it, maybe when we didn’t even know what those parts were. I don’t say this with regret. It is who we were.
And when it worked, it was glorious. And when it didn’t, we played it close to the chest. And kept on playing.
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Thank-you
Perhaps as a result of my own – very superficial – unpeeling, I am unexpectedly often moved to tears these days. Earlier today, as I drove to the University of Chicago Medical Center to provide my bio samples, I heard Suzanne Simard, a Canadian forest botanist and author of Finding the Mother Tree, tell how her breast cancer treatment with paclitaxel – a chemical produced by yew trees to defend themselves (and a chemical that is extending my life) – led her to a new line of study in her research into the interdependence of trees, fungi, and other forest creatures. Instantly, I choked up and had to pull over – as I would have had to, had I been in motion when I read this essay. My cancer journey has led me to understand on a profound level how our inter-connectedness contributes to our well-being and survival. Your reflection on the levels of our interdependence (and, yes, independence too) moved me deeply. Please, my gifted friend, promise someday (while I am still here) to publish the essays that you’ve been writing. Much love. ❤️
Oh, thank you my friend. I am so glad I did not cause a traffic accident. And speaking of interconnectedness, I await your news that you can come west. And meanwhile, I send love from peeled and unpeeled places.
Many years ago I met a Confucian scholar who helped me with my studies in that area. He has long ago transitioned to another space, but I remember his teaching. One of the more important cultural lessons I try to pass on to my students is this: Westerners believe that we are peaches—soft outside but with an inviable center “pit.” We are individuals above all else. Confucians believe that we are onions with many layers, each representing our relationship with others from the great circle of life to the intimate soul of private love. As you peel them off, you arrive not at a center “pit,” but at the last layer—still part of a greater whole . Or, as my mentor quoted Confucius, “Without others, who am I?”
Thank you for this insight, Tom.
You are giving us all the benefit of your open and exposed hindsight, and for that I am so grateful.
Have you read Peel My Love Like an Onion? By Ana Castillo. This beautiful post reminded me of that book. You might like it!
I love your writing. Have thought of you often and wondered how Tom was. So sorry for your loss. Having been there to see the core of many I love, I know how hard yet beautiful it can be.
Enjoy the hiking and learning more of your own layers.
Hard yet beautiful. Yes.
Woven betwixt the layers are threads that disappear and reappear throughout. The layers have layers. And yet, we love.
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