Puzzles

Maybe it’s a funny thing for a 40 year-old woman to buy with a Barnes and Noble gift card, but I’m not really into buying books that I’ll read once.  I occasionally buy a reference book like the handwriting analysis one I used a gift card on several years ago.  (I know what you’re thinking.  You’re shaking your head.  Why is she so weird??) But for some reason, I felt like using this gift card on something indulgent, something I would never, ever buy for myself.  I didn’t even know I’d want something like this until I allowed myself to browse that section.  I fingered it, fell in love with its smooth case and captivating picture.  I spontaneously decided this is what I wanted to spend my gift card on.  I’d never bought myself one in my whole life.  Until this day at Barnes and Noble during our Christmas break.  But it awakened something in me.  I chose a scene that matched my folk art cork place mats perched atop my high kitchen cabinets.  A country town, an outdoor scene.  I absolutely love it, and we’ve put it together several times since.  I’m torn between wanting to glue it to add to my collection up there and wanting to keep it to construct just one more time.  It’s the perfect blend of not too hard and not too easy, great for puzzlers of all ages in my family.

I didn’t know I liked puzzles so much until this shopping experience a couple years back.  I always knew the kids and I liked doing puzzles, but those were just little kid ones, the 100 piece kind at most.  I’d gotten almost all of them at Goodwill or garage sales.  A few as gifts.  I got rid of the frustrating cheap ones with pieces so flimsy and cheaply cut that they were annoying and not worth our time.  But others we’ve done possibly a million times.  I started the kids on puzzles way back as maybe one year-olds with those chunky wooden pieces with knobs and matching pictures underneath.  They reminded me of my days in daycare.  Over the years puzzles have been a constant in our house, providing many hours of quiet, thoughtful entertainment.  One of the best activities I can think of: engaging, old-fashioned, brain-worthy, reusable, solitary or as a team, just for fun or as a competition.  A classic in every sense.  And like I said, one of my favorite ways to spend time with them.

Maybe it was that year I bought myself my first puzzle, but I know it’s been just recently that I’ve started having puzzles out during the holiday breaks.  A throw-back to years gone past, an old-fashioned tradition, it just sounded like such a Christmasy thing to do for some reason.  I wanted to establish this custom while we still had time.  And I’ve started leaving them up.   I even bought one just for fun last month, out of the blue, brand new with its plastic wrapping still on.  Yes, of course I had my coupon.

I was watching a little boy last week at his house when he disappeared for a moment and promptly produced an old metal lunchbox type of container that held a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle puzzle.  We assembled it several times. Him, talking me through each of the characters; me, softly fading while holding the baby on the stool beside him.  It was just such a relaxing activity, such a comfort to be in my zone, a remembrance of my young-mom days with my little boys puzzling the morning away.  I ache for my little boys’ hands.

I wish we had a designated proper table that blended in a bit, that fit our house in size and look.  A friend told me of a special wooden table he’d seen with a felt inset and a cover, drawers to hold the pieces.  So interesting.  We just have a fold-up table with a white tablecloth pushed up against the wall when we’re not using it.  Not pretty, but it’s amusing how hardly a friend comes in without trying to fit a piece.  Even the teenagers.  And the adults.  Makes me smile.

I’m surprised at the number of adult friends who admit to leaving puzzles out on little side tables, who have memories from their past who like to share their stories.  It takes them back in time.  One friend puzzled all night while the four of us talked, making significant progress on our 1,000 piece puzzle that had been out for a couple of weeks already.  He told us they always had a puzzle out as kids.  It provided the perfect venue for family members to linger and to just chat in an easy, casual way.  He remembered the talks he and his dad would have around the puzzle table.  I loved the visual.

I’ve noticed that same thing happening in the short time I’ve started having a puzzle table out.  Most of the kids at some point during the day will try to secure at least one piece.  It even reeled Todd in the other night.  A natural gathering spot.  Especially for my 15 year-old son and me.  We’re kind of from the same mold in a lot of ways, and this is the perfect activity for us.  We’re engaged but just distracted enough for it not to be awkward.  We talk about nothing and sometimes more.  You know how it is with guys.  They like to focus on an activity so it never feels like they’re having a conversation.  I like how we connect more than pieces when we’re working together. 

While I didn’t know I’d be drawn to manipulative puzzles, I’ve always, always liked word puzzles and would fill up those little newsprint booklets made for old people even in my young-Caren years.  I had plenty of hours at daycare.  I started keeping a crossword puzzle book in my van many years ago.  It got so ragged I finally had to throw it away.  I need to get a new one.  I picked it up partly because I started feeling my age, as a defense against dementia.   It was also a nice diversion when I just had a couple of minutes of wait time, not really enough to engage in a book, but just a moment or two to fill in a couple five-letter words.  It also helps keep Todd awake on long road trips when even music doesn’t seem to be doing it any more. I ask and write, he fills in the blanks.  Scrabble and I also go way back to my daycare years.  It was also one of the first games we bought ourselves as a young married couple, the deluxe version.  Eventually pieces got chewed on by the dogs, but we have a replacement set now.  We still play it with the kids and even with a couple of our friends (the really close friend types).  Todd’s dad takes it more seriously than anyone else we know.  He’s a biochemist and knows far too many small words worth 38 points.

So I guess I’m a puzzler at heart.  Who knew?  But still such a novice at all kinds.  Maybe the only person who’s never done a Suduko.  I’m no puzzle guru, I’m not an expert at much of anything.  And maybe that’s part of the reason I shied away from them before, not wanting prove my inability.  Also because I’m only just learning the beauty of being still, of quieting myself, something Todd’s been trying to teach me since we started dating.  A late bloomer in so many regards, but it’s become a secret pleasure to discover how much I like calmly positioning pieces, anticipating the finished picture.

The life is a puzzle cliché is older than me.  But, just like the anticipated picture on the box, you knew what you were getting into when you started into these paragraphs.  Last month I presented the family with a 1,000 piece doozy from the thrift store, a windy fall folk-art scene with a bookseller cart and old cobbled streets.  But the bare trees and wavy grasses did us in.  I carefully slid poster board under and over to sandwich the creation and gently placed it atop our seven-grain cereal food storage cans downstairs in the basement.  Two friends of ours had worked heartedly on it, one was a teenage girl; another was a dad friend who came with his family to spend the evening with us.  I’d spend a few minutes every night and maybe a couple during the day now and then, and so did the kids and various guests.  But after a month of having it out, I cut our losses and put it on its new shelf to be handled maybe again this fall.  We’re just taking a little break.  I’ve found I do that with concerns that perplex me, situations I can’t quite figure out.  I have philosophical and doctrinal questions I can’t quite wrap my head around.  Relationships I thought we had, I believed all the pieces were aligning.  Alas, those too have been shelved for now because of slow progress.  In fact, some of the pieces have fallen off the table and been swept under the rug, so to speak.  But even that’s not a good enough reason to crumple the whole thing and box all the pieces, the framework, that’s otherwise quietly in place.  The trees confuse me, I can’t quite make sense of the branches.  I need some time to step away; I’ll revisit both the puzzle and the issues in a different season.

Some puzzles, like life’s challenges, have been gifts.  I don’t know that I would’ve chosen them, but we own them now.  I’ve tried to put a few in the Goodwill box, but my family wouldn’t let me, just as I’ve tried to detach myself from a few of life’s hairier challenges that won’t shake loose.  Others (both cardboard puzzles and little muddles) I’ve chosen for myself, like the fall scene I mentioned above.  Sometimes I don’t realize I’ve just dumped a box with too many tiny pieces for me to make sense of, just like a tangled conversation or a day with too many commitments.  I caution myself to not hastily just buy the puzzle because it’s cheap or looks fun.  Note for next time, I tell myself, don’t just say yes to requests without pausing.  There are always more pieces than you think.  The little puzzles that I do with the kids are akin to the small messes I make for myself in life: the cluttered calendar, the untidy piles, the days when most of the dishes we own are somehow out.  But eventually the pieces align and we have quite a picture to show for our day’s work.  They’re just as satisfying as the ones with 300-500 pieces, the larger dinner groups with people I’m not as comfortable with, a huge yard project.  They’re great, I love the challenge, they just don’t come together without a little more effort, and yet we all know the sense of achievement we feel when pieces all match up and we are able to stand back and take note of what the overall picture looks like.  So I’ve been involved with puzzles of myriad complexities, both in life and on the card table, with varying degrees of investment, toil, and effort.  And yet, you’d think there’d be a direct correlation between the level of difficulty and degree of satisfaction.  Possibly, but not always.  I could go either way.

With easier puzzles we hardly need the box top as a reference.  Maybe a quick glance just to get our bearings, just like a normal day where we check the calendar to see if there’s anything outstanding, a quick summary of the schedule.  But the more difficult the puzzle or challenge we’re up against, the more frequently and earnestly I reference the picture, the resources I’m given.  But no matter how many times I glance quickly between the included picture and the pieces on the table, it’s still hard to sense where this lone black piece with a stripe of red goes.  Or which part of the coast this wavy blue piece needs to be a part of.  As with life.  The more difficult the problem I’m engaged in, the more invested I am in checking to make sure I’m on the right path, that the framework is still in place, that I haven’t inadvertently hooked pieces together that seemed right but really weren’t.  Easy enough to correct, but sometimes I overlook my error until I realize the whole thing’s not quite fitting together as it should.  An unintentional mistake in a day or the puzzle on the table, easier to adjust early on rather than stringing together a bunch in a row until the whole thing’s completely out of whack.

I like a mix of puzzling by myself and having others join in.  Sometimes I like the quiet, the time to think, to sort the pieces of whatever’s puzzling me, to enjoy the solitude and peace, to just embrace a moment with myself.  But I equally enjoy having Mitchell by my side or one of the other kids. It’s rare for Todd to join me, but I welcome his company.  I like it when several of us surround the table, whether family members or friends.  It’s the same with most puzzles in life I have laid before me.  A lot of the time I’m happy to think things through on my own, to deal with the pieces and the picture I’m to create single-handedly.  And yet, other times I’ll gladly involve others, happy to include whoever’s game, glad they felt comfortable enough to pull up a chair and come to my aid at a particularly trying junction, a baffling part of a challenge when I just needed another perspective or a little companionship. 

And maybe that’s the beauty of puzzles, whether the easy table-top variety or the more heart-wrenching challenges of life.  The point of a puzzle is never the finished product.  If you wanted a picture-perfect product without seams and without effort you’d just buy a poster, framed and ready to hang.  But a puzzle’s purpose, the essence of what it was made for, is to allow us to take part in the creation.  We accept all puzzle pictures will have cracks; some take more patience than others and most of the bigger ones are hard to figure out even with the help of willing friends and a good point of reference.  Some may even have to be shelved for awhile until we’re ready to try again, when maybe a new perspective will help.  A few of us are expert puzzlers, just as some seem to be whizzes at life, but most of us take our time sorting out the pieces.  We usually start with the edges, the framework that provides us guidance and direction, but not everyone does—some just plow through a puzzle as they do life, dabbling in whatever area draws their interest.  A piece may be lost, really lost, you think.  But not to the one who created the puzzle.  Someday all the pieces—even the ones we thought we were always missing—will align, and we’ll stand back in awe at what we’ve created.  Eventually, if we stay with it, we’re privy to the whole picture.