How to Fill Your Day
during the COVID19 Quarantine
You might dig out some old jigsaw puzzles. As a boy I frequently put together puzzles
during long winter Saturdays and Sundays, and still today, during the Christmas
holidays we often work? assemble? make? a puzzle. This Christmas our oldest grand-daughter
chose a 1000 piece reproduction of a
painting by Edwin Hopper from the 8 or 10 puzzle boxes in the basement cupboard--and
took over the breakfast nook with it.
Now, in this virus season, Jeri and I have made all of our
puzzles except “Vermont Farm Scene with Holstein Cows,” so it’s time to
organize a Puzzle Exchange. (Of course
we would have to wait four days before starting in on the puzzles we exchange.)
As a longtime puzzle maker, I have developed a number of
puzzle making rules or advisements:
1.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are not
permissible snacks while making puzzle; popcorn is only permitted if it is
unbuttered.
2.
Singing while making puzzle is permitted and even encouraged.
Harmonizing is also encouraged and can sometimes lead to a song fest
around the piano.
3.
It’s okay to ask your fellow puzzlers if they
have seen a piece with blue-green on the bottom half and a squiggle of red in
the upper left corner. But no one is
required to respond to the request.
4.
It’s okay to say something like “Ah…finally
found that one I was looking for.
5.
It is not fair to hide a piece so you get to put
in the last piece--unless you are under 10.
6.
But it is the greatest bad taste in puzzle-making
to, after you have put a piece in, give it a slight thump (how’s that for a
split infinitive?) with your index finger.
This attempt at subtly saying “I just put a piece in” is the most
egregious of all puzzle making sins.
Some people are rather snobbish in their aversion to puzzle-making. “It’s such a waste of time,” they say, or,
“Why not do something that yields some lasting value? As soon as you’re finished making the puzzle,
you break it up. What good’s that?”
In contrast, I believe that in this time of virus sequestration,
few activities are more productive than making a puzzle. Our world right now is topsy-turvy. No one seems to be in control; no one knows
what should be done. It’s chaos.
Dump a puzzle on the table and there is your world: upside down
and right side up, every piece separated and all mixed up. Our job is to bring order out of the chaos
and so we set about the task: we turn
the pieces right side up; we find the side pieces and put them together; we slowly
work at making the world of the puzzle coherent, orderly, “the way it’s s’posed
to be.” Few things are more satisfying
to humans than this creating of order.
So, completing a puzzle is a small psychological triumph
over the irrationality and disorder of our time.
In fact, I am surprised no one has marketed a puzzle depicting
the magnified COVID 19 virus. Have you
noticed how beautiful they are—like something that came from a coral reef.
Perhaps a COVID 19 virus puzzle could be purchased already
made and your task would be to devise creative ways to destroy it?
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