Helena Handbasket
I can’t remember which of my ludicrous family members would occasionally sign their emails with the fake name ‘Helena Handbasket’, but whomsoever it be, they have forever caused a pavlovian response in me to the phrase ‘going to hell in a hand basket’. These days, some stressed-out burned-out wiped-out adult or other will conclude a blank-eyed rant about the state of the world with a declaration that we are going to hell in a hand basket and I will feel, at the very least, unthreatened. In fact, it feels kind of fun and cute that everything is going to hell in a hand basket. Why a hand basket? Because someone has put some thought into it, that’s why. Because they’ve packed a nice little snack-pack picnic situation and they’ve sent it to hell with the best of intentions. Hand baskets, whatever else they might be (and indeed what are they?) are not picnic baskets or bike baskets or hot air balloon baskets, all of which are substantial and would take up significantly more room in hell than a modest hand basket. Once you bore down, it’s not quite as terrifying a prospect as it seems.
Public Service Announcement: perhaps the whole world is going to hell in a hand basket, but that doesn’t mean we can’t treat ourselves, hm? Pack a little soft cheese? Write a love note to a sweetie-pie and pop that in there too? Attach the hand basket to a flying fox and enjoy the ride? After all, the future is the thing we can’t control. The basket feels like cause for careful planning.
At this point, I must point out that I am not poking my tongue out at the age-old conception of hell as a spiritual place of reckoning. That would be silly. I am speaking merely of the proposition that we are doomed and everything is out of our control and there is no saving anything. Because if that proposition is true, all the more reason to savour what we have right now.
Another favourite family expression I was reminded of recently is that when something is absolutely worthy of our praise and enjoyment, it should be described as no less than ‘worth its weight in wildcats’. Now, again, the expression confuses me slightly. I have no idea why wildcats are involved, for instance, not to mention the weighing of same, but I do know that it really does feel a lot better when you’ve done something and that thing is declared ‘worth its weight in wildcats’ by someone you love. It feels heroic. You’ve wrestled wildcats onto some bathroom scales for starters, one presumes. Good on you.
You know what else? If we’re sending things to hell in a handbasket (or indeed to Helena Handbasket) maybe we should be grateful that certain things are finally being sent to the exact location they have been begging to take up residence in for eons. Maybe we should carefully wrap these things and send them directly to Helena preferably by shooting them out of a cannon. For me, among the first things to be canonised in this way would be balsamic vinegar. Straight to Helena. The weird smell under the stairs can go too. And people who don’t clean up their dogs’ poo can go AT THE SAME TIME AS the stairs smell. And the balsamic. And whatever else I dislike!
Okay, okay. The grown-ups are frowning. Let’s be serious. We all know there isn’t a magical cannon to fire things we don’t like down. Maybe future is terrifying. Maybe what we’re experiencing when we have that feeling of uncertainty and looming malcontent is actually a lack of control. A feeling of complete exhaustion. It’s almost as though we experienced a global pandemic, locked ourselves away for a bit, returned to our lives as though nothing ever happened, and never had a chance to catch up.
So what are you going to do to make this bit worth it? Sure, imagining firing things you dislike into a hellscape can be entertaining for a short time, but also: did you know that if you sat down next to a prince or a king from any century other than the one we’re in, they would turn to you and say: you get to do what? They would be so mad. So jealous. They would throw that crown of theirs into the dust and scratch their knits and cry. You can eat chocolate from the other side of the planet. You can film entire movies with one hand.
Look at you go! Maybe Helena gets a hand basket at some point but for now? Enjoy what you’ve got. Surely, and I know this a big call, it’s worth its weight in wildcats.