The Skin of Memory

There is a specific kind of loss found in the kitchen of a house that has been emptied. It is the loss of the mundane, the quiet disappearance of the things that once anchored a day to the earth. I remember the way my grandmother would peel a bulb, the papery, translucent layers falling away like shed skin, revealing the firm, white heart beneath. It was a ritual of preparation, a promise that hunger would be met, that life would continue. Now, the kitchen is silent, and the hands that performed that task are gone. We often overlook these small, humble objects, yet they are the vessels of our daily survival. When we strip away the outer layers of our lives, what are we left with? Is it the core, or is it merely the space where the layers used to be? We spend so much time protecting the center, only to realize that the beauty was always in the shedding.

Silvia Bukovac Gasevic has taken this beautiful image titled It’s Just an Onion. It reminds me that even the most ordinary things carry the weight of our history. Does this image make you look closer at the things you usually discard?