Just like that, the puzzle project was over.
Silenced.
When i realized that the cat stepped onto the table and pulled the puzzle off spilling it to the floor, i just couldn't believe it. I knelt close to the floor and tried to pick up the pieces as carefully as i could. To preserve the linkages. To keep the integrity, somehow. I retraced in my mind how this happened and how i could have prevented it.
But, i wasn't looking. Not directly, anyway.
But it was no use. Just like that, the puzzle spilled to the floor and it was over.
I thought about that, and i thought! What a great ending to my puzzle project blogpost. How in an instant everything can change. That's a great metaphor. Now you're married, now you're not. Now you have it, now you don't.
Now you're alive, now you're not.
Whew. Big one.
But, we can all relate to that. We all know that all too often something or someone slips away so elusively. We ruminate. We fantasize about how it could have been different. But, no conjuring up fantasies changes anything.
We simply have to accept the inevitable.
It's over.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
The Puzzle Project ( a Christmas present)
The puzzle project was begun in earnest two days after Christmas. 2012. That was the year that i gave my mom a 1000 piece Wasij puzzle for Christmas.
At first we thought that we might be able to finish it if we worked diligently enough, that we could finish it by New Years Eve. But, by Monday afternoon, that was the day that New Years Eve was in 2012, well, it was clear to me then, that it would take a few more days to finish. Strike that. It would take alot of additional hours since Mom was going home and I had sole possesion of the puzzle.
You see, being only afficionadoes of the amateur type, we didn't think to put our puzzle on a surface that we could move around, or that was even in good light. So we dumped the puzzle pieces on my dining room table complete with planks burrows and brought in excavated table lamps with extension cords to make our puzzle mastery easier.
Of coarse, all along i thought that my mom was a puzzle maven and to her distress, i gave her a puzzle without a map! A puzzle without a picture. We had nothing to go on. Only the picture on the box that "suggested" the possible outcome.
So, this was difficult . And captivating. What was the picture? What were we trying to put together? What was the message of the puzzle?
Mom said it was best to start at the edges. Put the edges together and then you can figure out what fits inside. It creates a boundry. A side. Definition.
Hmmmm. Good idea. Makes sense. Most of us do need boundries.
The funny thing is, the puzzle started talking to me even before Mom left. Like one day, sitting at the dining room table, mulling about the pieces, the puzzle whispered to me that if i didn't think too hard about finding the RIGHT piece , that it would just somehow jump out all on their own... "when i was ready to see them". So, i practiced that. I thought that if i could just gaze over the pieces, that i would find them more readily. If i noticed the nuance of the colors, that my brain would fit the pieces together. And, sure enough, that was true. If i stopped searching for something so succintly, and I just looked for similarities, then the right piece would jump out. Like it was looking for me.
That made me think of how I try to fit things together in my own life. I think that what i need is a 4x6 piece of wood that will fit inside this doorway- when what i have is a portal. And i need a compass and something more round.
Hmmm. Maybe this puzzle was more than just a pretty picture.
At first we thought that we might be able to finish it if we worked diligently enough, that we could finish it by New Years Eve. But, by Monday afternoon, that was the day that New Years Eve was in 2012, well, it was clear to me then, that it would take a few more days to finish. Strike that. It would take alot of additional hours since Mom was going home and I had sole possesion of the puzzle.
You see, being only afficionadoes of the amateur type, we didn't think to put our puzzle on a surface that we could move around, or that was even in good light. So we dumped the puzzle pieces on my dining room table complete with planks burrows and brought in excavated table lamps with extension cords to make our puzzle mastery easier.
Of coarse, all along i thought that my mom was a puzzle maven and to her distress, i gave her a puzzle without a map! A puzzle without a picture. We had nothing to go on. Only the picture on the box that "suggested" the possible outcome.
Mom said it was best to start at the edges. Put the edges together and then you can figure out what fits inside. It creates a boundry. A side. Definition.
Hmmmm. Good idea. Makes sense. Most of us do need boundries.
The funny thing is, the puzzle started talking to me even before Mom left. Like one day, sitting at the dining room table, mulling about the pieces, the puzzle whispered to me that if i didn't think too hard about finding the RIGHT piece , that it would just somehow jump out all on their own... "when i was ready to see them". So, i practiced that. I thought that if i could just gaze over the pieces, that i would find them more readily. If i noticed the nuance of the colors, that my brain would fit the pieces together. And, sure enough, that was true. If i stopped searching for something so succintly, and I just looked for similarities, then the right piece would jump out. Like it was looking for me.
That made me think of how I try to fit things together in my own life. I think that what i need is a 4x6 piece of wood that will fit inside this doorway- when what i have is a portal. And i need a compass and something more round.
Hmmm. Maybe this puzzle was more than just a pretty picture.
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