Jigsaw Puzzles

I've never been much of a jigsaw puzzler—until Covid-19 came to town. A friend of mine on FB has been posting completed puzzles, and they looked hard. I envied what I imagined to be the focus that she needed (and cultivated) to complete them. Then another friend mentioned that she does jigsaw puzzles—and had one or two that were looking for a temporary home.

I bit. What the heck? I had time on my hands. And a need for something to concentrate on.

Little did I know what an interesting mind exercise jigsaw puzzles can be. So far, since late May, I've finished three: one featuring many dozens of pencils, one featuring several dozen pairs of ducks, and the third a jewelbox of beetles. Each one was very different in the approach needed.

And fortunately, it seems I was given them in order of easiness. The pencils involved basically organizing pieces by color—red then yellow then white then blue then pink, etc.—and then looking for specific colors or styles of type and piecing them together. I am fortunate to have a drawing table where I can do some laying out of pieces. This puzzle ended up being fairly methodical: as I worked through the colors, and adjoining colors, and more adjoining colors, it simply grew. Easy! I mean, challenging, sure—it's 1,000 pieces, and many of the pencil types were repeated. But it sort of assembled itself.

The ducks were a different story. The edge pieces weren't hard; there were words (the names of the ducks) that came together quickly; and there was an area of marsh grasses that, ditto. But the ducks themselves? They all have webbed feet and wings! On this one, I did a lot more studying of the picture, looking for just the right-shaped, yellow beak, or the right negative space between wings, or the right watery background. I started piling up duck bits atop their respective names. And eventually, I was able to start assembling. Ducks are definitely more challenging than pencils.

And then came the beetles. It's a beautiful painting of an amazing array of bugs. So colorful! And yet, so similar! Beetles have butts and wings and heads. Period. Okay, some of the heads are shaped like a T or have antennae protruding out of them (which helped). But most were just little lumps with eyes. Plus: lots of white space. With this one, after I managed to assemble the purple and white border (itself a challenge), I ended up mainly just shuffling through the pieces in the box, looking for . . . something, anything, that might help: like a pattern of stripes and dots, or like a particular color red, or a rainbow pattern. Forget the greens—though I did pull a bunch of those out, the green ones ended up being the last ones to come together. In the case of this puzzle, I'm not entirely sure just how it came together. But come together it did, and it's gorgeous. (It is sitting on my drawing table right now. I admire it every time I pass by. Simple pleasures.)

Another thing with this one that was different: with the first two, I ended up puzzling a little bit pretty much every day, maybe for half an hour, an hour. With the beetles, I found myself transfixed, and I'd work for two hours at a time, or keep coming back all day long—but then, I'd give it a rest for two, three, four days. It was like my brain wanted to persevere, because it was in a groove, but then it had simply had enough.

I know, this probably isn't very interesting to anyone who doesn't do jigsaw puzzles. (Or even to those who do!) But since I'm discovering this pastime for the first time, I am finding it fascinating to witness my brain at work.

And now, I am waiting for a shipment of three puzzles I ordered several weeks ago. They are overdue. But I realize that jigsaw puzzles are in high demand just now. So I am trying to be patient. Meanwhile, my husband happens to have a 500-piece puzzle that is languishing. I will give it something useful to do.

And the friend who has lent me these three puzzles? She's been working on a puzzle of a peacock, called "The Big Boy," for several weeks now. I may demur if she offers me that one. I saw it. It's hard.

Then again, if I finish the 500-piecer, and she finishes the Big Boy, and my puzzles haven't arrived—will I really have a choice?

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Current MoCo numbers: 2,983 confirmed cases (up 70 since yesterday); 197 hospitalizations (cumulative: up 1); and deaths remain at 18. New cases seem to be falling. But it's hard to tell from charts and graphs. Meanwhile, California remains at a fairly high level of shutdown—which idiots out there are complaining about. Would they really rather get deathly ill? Me—no thanks.

Wear a mask. Stay safe. Be well.