When this “pandemic” coup started a year ago, we braced ourselves mentally to deal with one week of spring break plus two weeks of lockdown. We were stunned, taken by surprise, in disbelief, somewhat afraid and mostly confused at how fast things were changing. Parents scrambled to make plans to ease the burden of working from home with bored and needy kids underfoot. The trio my kid was part of would (we thought!) spend one day at each house, creating two kid-free days for each set of parents. Genius it-takes-a-village style collaboration, if you ask me. I also not-so-secretly looked forward to taking off with my laptop down to the local café for some peace and quiet.
Alas, it was not to be. We were so naïve, so unsuspecting. That’s not at all how things played out.
We initially prepared for the three homebound weeks ahead of us with an uncharacteristic purchase of a board game (Catan — enjoyable, strategic), which we played en famille a few times. Once it became clear I would need a way to take my mind off things, I also pulled out a couple of secondhand puzzles I had stashed away.
I love puzzles. The more pieces, the better; the harder, the better. I prefer a pleasing image or pattern, but I’ll do the ugly ones too. Most aren’t difficult enough. (Most of the ones I have had access to, that is!) Some 1,000 piece puzzles haven taken me no more than an evening or two. I lament the scarcity of 3,000 piece puzzles.
I have to admit, I may have met my match with this last one. It was incredibly difficult — far more than it looks — and the first one I’ve struggled with to this extent. More than once, I toyed with giving up. But I’m stubborn, so I didn’t. I reminded myself that I’ve often wished for more difficult puzzles, and that now I was getting what I wanted, so I best enjoy it.
This unusual exercise in patience went untouched for weeks at a time. I returned to it only sporadically for a couple of hours here or there, usually in the interlude between the end of my workday and supper.
It didn’t help that it was missing some pieces. Two, I was told by the friend who loaned it to me. It is, after all, the job of good friends to challenge each other. ; )
As you can see, there were more than two missing. And the glare from the overhead lighting added to the already significant challenge.
What is it about puzzles? Color, pattern, shape.
There’s a correct way to proceed, of course — rules, order — and mine is perhaps different from what other puzzlers consider correct. For me, it’s edges first. Complete the frame, then choose a color or element to start with and pick away at that thread until it’s done or until it leads to a new thread. Completing the center is a meandering stroll, a contemplation.
Comparing pieces to the picture on the box cover is acceptable. Sorting pieces into piles of like colors or patterns is also acceptable. The pieces must mostly stay in the box but you can use both the top and bottom of the box to spread them out. Grouping pieces by shape is borderline cheating, a last resort.
Solving a puzzle requires an unfocused mind.
The puzzle-solving groove is a fluid, meditative state where thoughts bubble to the surface, are noticed, and allowed to pass by. Out of the jumble, fragments and patterns emerge, effortlessly. The correct arrangements of shape and color seem to pop out and, almost as if it’s my hand doing the perceiving and knowing, I can pick up the right piece and put it directly in the right spot. My unconscious brain has done the scanning and matching so that all that is left is to see the piece and perform the action.
In fact, it is astonishing how little effort and focus is needed. There is no searching, no combing through the box piece by piece, assessing and trying each one. The best approach is often to disengage the conscious mind while running my fingers through the jumble of pieces, turning them over, pausing to see what has risen to the surface, what has appeared, a visible and obvious perfect fit.
Meanwhile, because the puzzle solving doesn’t require my full attention, I am free to listen to a podcast, sing along with music, or carry on a conversation. I can hop up to stir the supper and pour a glass of wine, and slide right back into it, often with refreshed perception. I can listen to Husband talk — albeit without the usual eye contact — and continue putting pieces in their rightful place. If alone, I can think my thoughts, fully, without distraction, while my hands and eyes go about solving the disorder of the specific framed space in front of me.
An unfocused mind is a great tool, a fabulous trick. What better sleight of hand than to fool yourself into thinking you’re doing one thing when, in fact, you’re engaged in something else entirely. Which is the thing and which is the other? Which is the goal and which the distraction? Am I solving a puzzle or working on some other problem?
Could it be that by averting my gaze and never looking directly at my goal, I might more intuitively find a better path forward?
What kind of ridiculous superstition is this?
I have sped through many puzzles this year, solving them through laughter and tears, through bright light and dim, in the company of others and silently alone.
In the early years (or possibly months) of our relationship, Husband and I drove to the Eastern Townships from time to time on weekends to visit his mom. On one of these first trips, as we left Montreal and the more familiar landscape behind, I noticed an idyllic (as it seemed to me then) farmhouse set back from the road running parallel to the highway. It stood out in the middle of a field, proudly wearing its wide wrap-around porch like a fabulous full skirt swirling in the summer breeze.
I thought clearly: How must it be to live in a house like that, in a location like that? (The proximity to highway wouldn’t have bothered me then as it would now.)
I thought clearly: How would it be to stand on that porch and look out across that magnificent expanse of land, my own skirts blowing in the warm wind?
I thought clearly: If I had made different choices, would a home like that have been possible for me? Could it still be? (That last question was in a much, much quieter voice.)
A few years ago, I listened as a couple whose work I admired talked about living part-time at their house in the U.S. and part-time at their apartment in Italy. I imagined how it might be to have the kind of business that would permit me that kind of lifestyle. Independence, travel, a fulfilling creative career, sigh. None of their charmed life seemed within reach — not for me.
Nevertheless, I held the vision in my mind from time to time, rolling it over in my imagination the way one enjoys a particularly fine meal, the lingering flavors and satiety. What would it be like to spend part of the year here, part of the year in Europe? What would it be like to be free from the shackles of an employer’s schedule and demands? Uncertainty or insecurity typically sends me scurrying for cover. This exciting and thrilling daydream was more than enough for me to quickly conclude that I didn’t have it in me. I couldn’t see how I could get from here to there, from point a to point b. But I liked the idea. A lot.
Last year at this time, in the midst of this burgeoning chaos and tyranny, Husband and I were stubbornly and slowly taking one small step toward our own version of that vague and distant fantasy: acquiring a family vacation home in Husband’s home country. The process was a millefeuille of anxiety and stress among layers of fear and confusion. That we both expected to be able to continue working from there was an unexpected benefit of the pandemic-related shift to remote work and a gentle compromise on my dream of autonomous self-employment.
We succeeded with our purchase and we congratulated ourselves, eager to take off on our new adventure, just as borders began closing and quarantines were imposed. We did a quick two-step sideways and changed our immediate plans. Husband went alone to finalize arrangements. I stayed home.
This newest journey was started out of fear. I maintain that this is the wrong frame of mind for conducting a transformation, but it was the kick in the pants we needed.
We thought: If everything goes to sh!t, how will we survive? True, we have a creek behind our house we can use for water; we have an acre of land we can use for producing food. We’re in better shape than many would be. A serious question nagged: where would we get the wood to heat our home?
We decided we needed 100 acres of forested land with a water source to give us enough wood for fuel and the possibility of foraging, fishing, trapping and hunting. We browsed the real estate listings and immediately found something that seemed just about exactly perfect. It was the perfect property, we were sure of it. I was smitten.
From there, we put our duplex up for sale and started planning how we would reimagine our lives. When our offer was accepted, we were overjoyed. When our purchase fell through because the duplex didn’t sell in time, we were crushed.
You can read about that roller coaster ride here and here and here and some more here. (Safe to say, I’ve been preoccupied with the topic.)
Someone wanting very much to find a missing piece could easily have been fooled by shape and color into thinking that first property was the right fit. Our brains picked up the elements of the pattern and thought, Eureka, that’s it!
We placed that piece just outside the edge of the puzzle frame, in that area reserved for holding on to unique and intriguing pieces, the ones you don’t want to put back in the box because you know they will play a special role, while you wait to find their rightful place. We held on to that first property in our minds, wanting very much for it to fit.
Until it sold to someone else.
We combed through the real estate listings constantly. None came as close to perfect as that first one, no matter how hard we tried, no matter how many different ways we turned them around in our minds. Maybe like this. Maybe like that.
We changed strategies, considering vacant land, other areas, smaller lots, higher prices.
Two (three?) weekends ago, when we painted the downstairs apartment, we got an offer that we quickly and gratefully accepted.
The buyers are a nice couple with two little children. They want a home. Unlike some of the people who visited, they aren’t planning to turn it into a generic rental unit or to gut it for a dramatic remodel. They appreciate its crooked charm and will slowly do the needed renovations, making it theirs. I’m glad to know that the home we loved will go to a family who will love it and fill it with life. I think the energy and goodwill we put into patching and painting helped generate this outcome.
Superstitious? Perhaps.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently sitting with the idea that there are, in fact, mysterious forces helping to guide us. Whether something happens or doesn’t, there might be a good reason for it, one that might not be revealed until later, if at all.
What are the chances of succeeding on the first try? What are the benefits of failing?
Failure provides opportunity: Opportunity to refine, to reconsider, to understand; opportunity to take a break, to learn, to explore, and to look at things from different angles. Particularly, perhaps, if you’re paying attention with an unfocused mind.
It’s rarely on first attempt that the hand reaches out for the right piece and places it smartly in the right spot; it’s usually the result of observation and some trial and error. You have to put the frame together first. This takes sifting through the box for straight edges. In the process, you’re discovering the variety of shapes and sizes of all the other pieces. There’s no need to mourn when a piece you try doesn’t fit.
To seize on the right piece, the mind must simultaneously hold an accurate image of the space where a piece goes alongside an accurate image of the shape and color of the piece. These are opposites similar to the negative of a photograph and its print, or to the white space on a page and the shape of a text block. You can adjust your focus so one or the other comes to the foreground and becomes clear. Holding both in your mind’s eye simultaneously, for longer than a moment, is challenging.
Outlines can play tricks, leading you to assume a color or pattern continues beyond the edge, to fill in gaps with guesses. Depending on where the cut occurs, the adjoining piece might surprise you with an abrupt change of color or pattern, a sudden small shock of red in a sea of nondescript beige.
The right piece might in fact be something you would never have thought would fit.
When I was young our family, completed many jigsaw puzzles. Santa always left a new challenging one that would be spread over the dining table during the Christmas holidays. Mon's rule was that the border/frame HAD to be completed first before anyone started gathering pieces for the inside. Mom and Dad were involved as were all of us kids. A family tradition that I passed down to my daughter's. Your Grandma was doing 750-1000pc puzzles well into her late 80's until dementia made it difficult. I was sad to see the decline in her ability and often would sit with her in long term care, placing the correct piece in a 50 piece child's puzzle, directly in front of her to no avail. Often now, when a piece has avoided my search, it tends to show up directly in front of me. I take this as a sign that Mom appreciated the help.
I love the way you relate your life, hopes and dreams for the future to puzzling. You have the framework, now just to place the pieces in the correct spots. Maybe Grandma will assist by putting one or two directly in front of you!
"Grouping pieces by shape is borderline cheating, a last resort."
Ahem... I beg to differ. ;-) In fact, isn't that what you do for the border? BORDERline cheat? Or maybe not. ;-)
In any case, that's not my real comment - only a slight disagreement. ;-)
What I really want to say is that each one of your posts is more magical to me than the last. Mostly, I think, because you know how to write in a way that attracts me: you use specific, meaning-charged words and seductive metaphors to paint colourful images of the stories of your life! A life charged with meaning, seduction and colour!
I cannot read your words without feeling proud goosebumps, and also tears in the corners of my eyes.
Thank you for this gift.
xoxo