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These are times of fear and uncertainty, what with covid-19 still running rampant and no vaccine yet to fight it.  These are also times of coming together as family and community.  People are showing their best selves as they check on people, shop for the elderly, and play and spend time with their children and spouses.  One of the past-times that has really taken off since this pandemic is putting together jigsaw puzzles.  I see daily posts of people completing their 1500-piece or 2000-piece puzzle, many of the designs looking pretty intricate.  Impressive!  Mom and I had started a puzzle before we were housebound, mainly because mom complained of being bored.  Since my husband and I had several jigsaw puzzles, I thought it would be a fun way to give mom something to do.  It took some time but we finally got the frame together.  We only worked on it occasionally, but it was fun as we would see it gradually come together.  It was a woodland picture with several colorful birds, a squirrel, a large tree and lots and lots of green leaves.

At one point mom said, “I wish I could wiggle my nose and the puzzle would be done.”

“That would kind of defeat the purpose of giving you something to do. Then, what, you’d go back to being bored again?”  I asked incredulously.

So, on we worked.  Once we completed the frame, we started working on the birds and some of the flowers.  Seeing small completed sections helped spur us on. With feeling so out of control in many areas of our life, what with being confined to home and having to wear masks when shopping and disinfecting everything you bring into the house, it was rather satisfying assembling the random pieces of a puzzle into a beautiful picture. We started connecting the different sections and getting to see the big picture and that was pretty cool.  We started to move along more quickly as more of it got completed.  Fortunately, I thought to check our robot vacuum when I emptied it as two pieces we inadvertently dropped on the floor got sucked up by it.  As we struggled through parts of it, particularly the foliage part–there were so many green leaves!!, I was certain we must still be missing pieces.

But then it all started to come together.  Now, I got the thrill of the jigsaw puzzle.  I had never done many puzzles before and am not an overly patient person, but it was quite enjoyable when the final pieces were fitting into place.  Then, one morning I finished the puzzle and we did indeed have all of the pieces!  I felt proud and accomplished.  So this is why people do jigsaw puzzles.  Granted it took us 6-7 weeks to complete one 1000-piece puzzle.  I didn’t let the fact that people on Facebook were boasting about completing their 2000-piece puzzles in 3 days.  I assumed they weren’t also working from home or didn’t have a life.  Ok, admittedly I was a little jealous of them, but still proud of our achievement.  It is a fun diversion during these times of isolation.  After leaving the puzzle on the table completed for a couple weeks trying to determine our next step, I decided to glue and frame it.  It is now mounted on the wall as you walk into our house through the garage. I find it interesting so many are drawn to jigsaw puzzles in these puzzling times.  I believe it’s a way of gaining a modicum of control, during uncertain times.