skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Working Jigsaws
I have been thinking about my writing and why I am mulling over the past. I am trying to remember, trying to sort out the pieces, as if they were parts of a puzzle, trying to join them together with some coherence. Arranging and rearranging the pieces, assembling a slightly different picture every time. What image am I trying to create? I am not really sure. Mostly I am remembering, re-traveling long ago paths and hoping that by retracing my steps I will come across something I missed on the first trip, some sort of ah-HA! - so THAT'S WHY. I go over the scattered memories and conversations, sometimes like a detective building a case, sometimes like a collector bringing order to his pile of treasures by continual repositioning. My memories are different from the recollections of siblings and cousins. When their new odd pieces are thrown into the mix, I try to make them fit. I shave a little off of this one’s edge or press that one into a spot where it doesn’t quite fit. My grandmother, Nana, had an intense love for games and puzzles. She enticed us into her world, lavishing us with the attention a child craves when growing up in a large family with busy parents. We became addicts. Besides the intoxication of the inner world of mental games, there were all those wonderful physical objects to hold and move about; checkers, cards, dice, chips, and most of all those strangely shaped colored bits of cardboard that could join together to create a masterpie
ce. At our cabin there was always a giant jigsaw puzzle in progress on a rickety card table at the end of the living room. We worked on it in shifts, our backs stiff, our eyes bleary, hunger and thirst gnawing away at our guts. It was a grueling and dangerous activity. At any given moment the dog could pass underneath, wag his tail and knock the sky off the edge. A passing sister, (snidely insisting that puzzles were a waste of time), would find the piece with the little part of the red boat – annoying those of us who had been putting in endless hours searching for it. The little ones, drawn by the intensity of our adult concentration like flies to sugar wanted to “help”. We shooed them away with “don’t touch that! - here you can work this one”, appeasing them with a game box missing so many pieces that we knew better than to attempt it anyway. So here I am, putting in my time, finding parts that interlock, bringing together sections of a larger picture; clouds here, a boat there, the horse’s leg, working towards some sort of completion. I probably won’t end up with a masterpiece, but maybe I’ll get a picture of my past without too many holes in it.
I have been thinking about my writing and why I am mulling over the past. I am trying to remember, trying to sort out the pieces, as if they were parts of a puzzle, trying to join them together with some coherence. Arranging and rearranging the pieces, assembling a slightly different picture every time. What image am I trying to create? I am not really sure. Mostly I am remembering, re-traveling long ago paths and hoping that by retracing my steps I will come across something I missed on the first trip, some sort of ah-HA! - so THAT'S WHY. I go over the scattered memories and conversations, sometimes like a detective building a case, sometimes like a collector bringing order to his pile of treasures by continual repositioning. My memories are different from the recollections of siblings and cousins. When their new odd pieces are thrown into the mix, I try to make them fit. I shave a little off of this one’s edge or press that one into a spot where it doesn’t quite fit. My grandmother, Nana, had an intense love for games and puzzles. She enticed us into her world, lavishing us with the attention a child craves when growing up in a large family with busy parents. We became addicts. Besides the intoxication of the inner world of mental games, there were all those wonderful physical objects to hold and move about; checkers, cards, dice, chips, and most of all those strangely shaped colored bits of cardboard that could join together to create a masterpie
ce. At our cabin there was always a giant jigsaw puzzle in progress on a rickety card table at the end of the living room. We worked on it in shifts, our backs stiff, our eyes bleary, hunger and thirst gnawing away at our guts. It was a grueling and dangerous activity. At any given moment the dog could pass underneath, wag his tail and knock the sky off the edge. A passing sister, (snidely insisting that puzzles were a waste of time), would find the piece with the little part of the red boat – annoying those of us who had been putting in endless hours searching for it. The little ones, drawn by the intensity of our adult concentration like flies to sugar wanted to “help”. We shooed them away with “don’t touch that! - here you can work this one”, appeasing them with a game box missing so many pieces that we knew better than to attempt it anyway. So here I am, putting in my time, finding parts that interlock, bringing together sections of a larger picture; clouds here, a boat there, the horse’s leg, working towards some sort of completion. I probably won’t end up with a masterpiece, but maybe I’ll get a picture of my past without too many holes in it.
No comments:
Post a Comment