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The Kitchen Madonna Loses Her Little Yellow Basket June 30th, 2006 Some folks lose their mojo. Ella Fitzgerald - in the 1930's song that made her famous - lost her little yellow basket. I think I'll swing it with Ella and bewail my lost little yellow basket. Try to find that. Everyone needs to hear a young Ella sing “A Tisket, A Tasket, I lost my yellow basket, won't someone help me find my basket and make me happy again.” (Go ahead...listen here) Listening and reading between the lines, you quickly get the idea that that basket is very important and that she really isn't going on about a basket anyway. That basket must be code for something else. I used to think that Ella was singing about one thing but now - that I've lost my little yellow basket and I'm trying to be a good Catholic girl - I'm convinced she was singing about something else. And, I'm convinced she lost her mojo. Now, mojo is one of those words that means different things to different people. One girlfriend, who lives in a sophisticated Southern metropolitan center emblematic of all things hip hop, said she thought she lost her mojo before realizing she was pregnant. She started napping a lot and other changes played havoc with her mojo. Being two funky and creative individuals, we brainstormed what mojo means although we were over 1,000 miles apart and I was walking in a pasture talking via cellphone. We ran over the many possibilities: losing your spark and becoming emotionally flat; losing your edge, your game, your game face. Then, I switched metaphors and mentioned Ella's torch song for her basket. That the male chorus at song's end asks her, “was it green? was it red? was it blue? Ella is emphatic with each no. It was yellow. So we start thinking jewel tones, then just jewels, and then ahh ha, that yellow basket was some kind of spiritual treasure hidden in the everydayness of a wicker basket lined with a sunny yellow fabric. Now that we are really through with the mojo issue, let's redefine what it means to lose your little yellow basket. I realize this metaphor won't work with guys and that is all right. So be it. I guess you-all can lose or find your yellow baseball caps. But for the sake of the argument, let's wonder, with Ella, why I was so careless with that little basket of mine and why it would make me happy again. What was in the basket and what does the color yellow mean? A basket that Ella would have carried would have been tastefully small. Metaphorically that basket is self-contained, complete in its self-enclosedness, like a secret garden. Did it have fried chicken in it like Dorothy's basket in the Wizard of Oz? That is the question asked by my girlfriend from a small Midwestern town that is a total throwback to the early 20th century. (And I mean throwback in the absolute best possible terms; I adore that town myself and hope it will prosper again.) That fried chicken speculation is undocumented so don't go google that. But I don't think either Ella's or Dorothy's basket had watercress sandwiches or just homey salami sandwiches on whole wheat with lots of mayo, lettuce, and ripe homegrown tomatoes that my Southern mama would have put in any yellow basket of mine. No, there is a treasure in that basket. Food is valuable, don't get this kitchen madonna wrong, but it wasn't a butternut quash quiche either. And then the basket was yellow. While yellow butternut squashes are a high denomination in KM currency - unlike that ubiquitous yellow mustard you squeeze from a bottle - I think spiritual values trump food although I know they are highly intertwined. Could that yellow basket hold something sunny, wholesome, easily accessible to many people? I think mauve or sea foam green are not universally accessible; many people just don't connect with sea foam green like I do. But yellow is accessible. Like a shaft of golden sunshine breaking through on a drear winter afternoon. Can we agree this basket was most likely not some oversold and artificially overpriced Kate Spade basket-purse discretely lined with pale yellow fabric sold at a mall? Something a proud mama would buy for her daughter for her honeymoon cruise? No, it is a sunny, everyday treasure available to all. I've lost my little yellow basket at different times of my life. I am sure you have too. Like the time I quit writing because I was exclusively focused on my new husband and our new marriage and his needs. I mean, I quit dancing around the house. I wasn't exercising. Of course there is so much more to that story, and I won't try to pontificate about the difference between unhealthy co-dependence and authentic self-donation. But that yellow basket was no where to be found. I will say I get my little yellow basket back when I focus on my relationship with the Author of Life and those strong shafts of golden sunlight. That is ordinary yet a treasure. It is as accessible to all as the air we breathe. But when something or someone becomes our idol, those golden rays from on high are blocked. And we all have our idols upraised on altars that we make burnt offerings to, and they usually burn us and those around us. No one or nothing can make us happy again despite what Ella thinks. It is the daily, continuous uplifting of our hearts and minds in prayer and renewing them with whatever is good, true, of good report, excellence - that renewing of our mind St. Paul's writes about. We find joy when we seek the legitimate spiritual and material goods of this life, and the one to come and how to do that given God's laws. We have joy in fulfilling our God-given vocation. That is what grounds us and gives the undivided joy of that everyday sunlight. No matter what happens. Look for that little yellow basket. Help the Ellas of the world find it too. And give thanks for any pale yellow egg salad (embed recipe) sandwich slathered with sunny yellow mustard if it is placed in front of you. © 2006 The Kitchen Madonna |
