CLEANING THE BASKET HOUSE / Jenna Marie Fletcher Spring opens up everything which is hard if eye contact makes you nervous. Open up the blinds, spine straightens, moon’s soft, slow fury, etc. The world perfectly, devastatingly perched between randomness and god, which is a thing someone recently said to me at a party that I laughed out loud about. I am uncomfortable. Itchy. I recently learned that Martha Stewart has a small, freestanding structure on her upstate NY property that she calls the Basket House. She also has a horse named Ben Chunch, which is not related to the Basket House, I suppose, aside from the fact that they both belong to Martha and have questionable, delightful names. The Basket House contains, of course, Martha Stewart’s basket collection. She has always had baskets, she says. Baskets of all different kinds. Some have lids, and some do not. Some purchased at tag sales and some purchased directly from talented basket-making artisans themselves, she says. The first step, Martha says, is to remove the baskets and place them outside on the dry grass. There’s no way to tell how bad it is in there until you just start. After cleaning the baskets you mop the house surfaces of any cobwebs or light dirt that might have been tracked in whenever a basket was retrieved or returned. The way I understand this is a metaphor for trauma, despite the fact that I’ve seen the photos of the actual Basket House. You dutifully take the baskets out every now and then and tend to them. Some are delicate motherfuckers that you don’t want to get rid of, and others, still, you never found a use for but can’t stop stacking and restacking. Sometimes you open the doors of the Basket House and discover more baskets than you remember. Like a long con. Like a pickpocket but in reverse. Like maybe you’ve been sleepwalking. Like maybe the baskets are coming from inside the house. Spring is as good a time as any to assess your collection. The tulips opening stupidly, and that is one of my traumas, which is also one of my baskets. Men’s hands. The oculus still capped. The shapes move slowly toward you, and you try to grotesque your body into them so that it all passes. Shattuck Ave. Gaze held. The sound of a song played from another room at a party–weird and watery. Learning to love my Blackness in the time of Ferguson. In the time of backyard, Arizona tea, train car. Anywhere? Anytime. Basket. Basket. Basket. I’ve lost the metaphor, but I think it’s something about arriving. About pulling into the station of yourself. How some day is also today. Something, I guess, about cleaning out the Basket House. ⁂ Jenna Marie Fletcher is a writer, talker, chronic dabbler, and adult human woman. She believes firmly in sharp things, bad jokes, and the new moon face emoji.
