A Basket

   Many years ago, I was clearing the tables at a Halfway House I was staying in, after a bad bout with drugs and alcohol. On each table was a small wicker basket used to hold the salt, pepper, ketchup etc... I noticed that a lot of salt and pepper had accumulated in the bottoms of all of these baskets. I decided to take it upon myself, to empty each basket and clean from them, the fine grains of seasoning that had collected between the weaves.
   As I was patting out the last of the salt from one of these baskets and was preparing to replace the condiments, I related the total emptiness of the little basket, to the total emptiness I felt deep within myself. I felt that...not long ago, what had been... what I had considered a somewhat full and useful basket/life...was now completely empty and bereft of a credible future. I knew that, without my help, those little baskets would remain empty and unsuccessful at what they had been created to do.
    I shook off that thought and turned again to replace the seasonings to their proper places inside the baskets. As I was doing so, I realized... I didn't HAVE to replace the condiments EXACTLY in the same place I had found them and I started to think about ALL the different things those little baskets could hold. They could hold mail, change, crafts, keep sakes, flowers etc...what could be put IN those empty little baskets was almost limitless! Ultimately, it was up to ME to decide what I put back into them AND in what order I put them in.
    I sat there thinking about all the ways I could use those baskets and the relationship between the emptiness of the baskets and the emptiness I felt about my life, came back into focus. I realized that much like an empty basket could contain whatever I wanted to put in it, my life too, could contain whatever I wanted it to hold. It was up to me...and ONLY ME...to choose what I wanted to keep in my life, what I wanted to permanantly remove and what new or different "seasonings" I wanted to add to my "little basket" of life.
   Suddenly, instead of feeling lost, alone and hopeless, I began to feel excited!!! For the first time in my entire life I KNEW....that only I am responsible for the things I choose to enclude in my life! That I have control over who, what, where, when and why...the people, places or things, that would be encluded in "my little basket" of MY life.

I know now that...
Sometimes, we must be completely empty...BEFORE...we can CHOOSE what we WANT to put back into, or to add, to our own lives!

    Since that little "housecleaning" session with the tables and baskets, I have learned to become responsible for what I choose to welcome and enclude into my life. My "basket" isn't empty anymore and the people, places and things, that I have chosen to enclude in my "basket" are WONDERFUL!

And for THAT, I am Thankful!!!

Mary McLaughlin

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