Once a month I drive fifteen miles to a church hall in a neighboring town, where kind volunteers stack the tables with boxes of jigsaw puzzles. For thirty minutes, people swap puzzles and stories. It's free and regulars know to bring a bag: we're encouraged to take more, not less, as it keeps the puzzles circulating.
Sometimes several of us chuckle over a puzzle - that's beautiful but it's going to be a hard one. Of all the puzzles I've done, I've only given up once. It was a gorgeous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. But the colors and shapes of the pieces made it incredibly difficult, and I finally bowed in defeat.
But most of the time, I stumble along. At the last puzzle swap, a dear man and I got to talking about puzzles and parts of ourselves, and how, like a good puzzle, everything belongs - even the parts we don't like or the history we wish weren't there. Our conversation got me thinking and became this poem.
Picking Up the Pieces
Sometimes you wish your life were as tidy
as a jigsaw puzzle, where each piece fits
and finds its place. You want to feel the ease
as the jumble of colors comes together into
an ordered whole. But it's tension, not ease,
that holds the pieces together. A puzzle needs
enough difficulty and mystery to make it fun:
You think a piece fits here but it belongs
somewhere else. You get stuck, then swap
two pieces and the puzzle flows again. And
there's always a piece so out of place you
wonder if it's in the wrong box. But as the
picture takes shape the stray piece finds
her home. This fills you with delight, how
something you thought was wrong turns out
to be right. You need every piece of the puzzle
for it to make sense. After the puzzle's done
these strange pieces are the ones you remember,
not the ones you assembled quickly out of the box.
As you click pieces into place you wonder about
everything sideways in your life, all the disordered
pieces that can't possibly fit. You wonder what picture
they're creating, what whole they complete – and
how you might fit, too? You live the puzzle
of your life and wonder what beauty will appear
as each mysterious, strange, estranged, difficult,
beloved piece finds their home.
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With a grateful heart, Karly