Puzzling
Daily writing experience - day 51
Puzzling
My husband's main pastime in his retirement is going to thrift stores. He's been collecting LP’s/vinyl records for a long time. And now he brings other things home too…
There is a Goodwill store within a five minute drive from our home. Leland visits multiple times a day. He is on a first name basis with practically all employees.
I've almost gotten used to being surprised by the “new to us” artful objects such as lamps, children's books & toys and other things that suddenly appear in our home and in our garden.
Sometimes he brings home things I might be interested in, like puzzles.
Once Leland brought me a beautiful 1500 piece puzzle of the 1929 Wassily Kandinsky abstract painting “Mit Und Gegen / For And Against” which features various shades of red, black, and some blue, yellow and white.
I folded the tablecloth onto itself to uncover the end of the long dining room table, the one we don't usually eat on unless family's over, to have a place to work the puzzle.
I would walk over to the puzzle any chance I got during the day. There were many short visits in between coaching client calls. In the evening, I could be so focused on the puzzle that I found myself going to bed very late.
I worked the edges first. It felt quite satisfying to put different pieces together, sometimes based on shades of color, shapes of pieces or the sharing of lines.
My eyes learned to distinguish the differing shades of red.
I didn't keep track of the time I spent, although I wish I had.
And towards the end, I had to release the desire to finish the puzzle.
It turned out the puzzle was impossible to complete. There were several puzzle pieces missing from the used puzzle box!
Would I have started the process had I known the puzzle was incomplete? Probably not.
Did I enjoy the time I spent putting it together though? Absolutely.
It didn't affect my quality of life to not be able to complete the puzzle, however it provided a lived experience of “focus on the journey, not the destination”.
What unexpected lessons have you learned through your pastimes?