Thursday, July 16, 2020. Puzzling Thoughts

Have you ever heard of a puzzle exchange? I hadn’t, but recently accrued about 10 puzzles from a friend of mine who asked that after I completed them to give them back to her instead of bringing them to a thrift store. It turns out she has a circle of friends and relatives who all enjoy puzzles and they rotate them among each other and beyond. This is such a brilliant concept! We have a smallish collection of puzzles, but most of them I would definitely do again, so they will not be heading to a thrift store. However, I would gladly lend them out to a friend and get them back again at some point. If you don’t love doing jigsaw puzzles, this makes no sense to you and even now, you are shaking your head at the weirdness of it all.

I wouldn’t say I’m an avid year-round puzzler – I tend to do them more in the winter. And I have some basic requirements of a puzzle in order for me to want to tackle it:

1. No landscapes with tons of sky.
2. Interesting, diverse and imaginative visually.
3. At least 1000 pieces (although I’ve done 500 pieces and enjoyed them).
4. Puzzle pieces that stay together and fit well.
5. I appreciate it when a separate poster of the puzzle image is included, but am not a stickler about it.

I’ve only ever gotten rid of three puzzles, two because they were too frustrating or boring to work on and one because it was so hard I thought I’d never do it again after completing it. No regrets on the first two, but I’ve regretted getting rid of the other one many, many times. It was called Purple Madness and had been given to me by my brother. It was basically just fractals. Let me see if I can find a photo on the “interwebs” for you to see.

It was insanely difficult and tedious – just the kind of thing I don’t like in a puzzle – but it was a gift and I wanted to honor the giver by completing the puzzle. However, somewhere along the line I developed what I call my “puzzle eyes.” Some of you puzzlers out there will know what I mean by this. When you’ve worked a puzzle for some time and have looked at the pieces and the picture again and again, your eyes begin to be able to look more discerningly and intelligently at the individual pieces and get a sense for where they go. Anyway, this puzzle was so repetitive visually that I didn’t think it would ever happen. Somewhere after the 7th-inning stretch, I began to SEE the pieces and the pattern in a way that allowed me to take more pleasure in putting it together – it didn’t seem so random anymore. When I finished it, I felt like Rocky finishing his climb up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “Gonna fly now! Flying high now!” And then I sold it at a garage sale.

I’ve been on a puzzle binge ever since getting this bounty. I find it both relaxing and addicting, a strange combination. Here’s the one I just finished yesterday:

I hate taking them apart after I’m done, so I’ll wait a few days before dismantling this one. Sometimes I put all the border pieces in a separate bag – is that cheating? I was listening to a book by Sue Klebold called A Mother’s Reckoning while I worked on this one and my memories of the book are ever entwined with the image of this charming little picnic scene. Sue Klebold is the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the two Columbine High School shooters who went on a rampage at the school in April of 1999, killing 15 people (including themselves) and injuring 24. It was a haunting and heart-rending book, read by the author. I recommend it.

Well, this was certainly one of my chattier blog posts. Thanks for hanging in there with me. And thanks for the puzzles, Lori!

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.