60. what I've learned from jigsaw puzzles
Yeah, I've learned stuff, let me share it with you.
Hello friends of the interwebs.
Is the room warm? Is the room cold? Is your room perfecto temp? If that is the case, consider yourself a winner already.
This is dispatch number 60. And next week this publication/experiment will be turning ONE YEAR OLD. (!!!)
What does that tell me about the passing of time? Nothing I didn’t already know.
That it keeps unfolding and unfolding and we only seem to understand the stuff in hindsight.
When I was smoler, a year seemed like a crazy amount of time and now, I’m embarking on projects that might take a year, two, or even three to come to fruition. Huh.
It’s a new kind of slowness and calmness I must adapt to. FAST! -haha, just kidding, I’ll adapt slow ; )-.
I will adapt at my own pace and time, okay? In the active search for that adaptation…
I came up with a wonderful thing called JIGSAW PUZZLES. I knew they existed. I even played around with some when I was smoler. But as an adult? This was the first time I was committed to such a wonderful dance battle. The dance battle was: a team of 1.000 tiny pieces against my team aka me, I was dancing solo.
It took me over 20 hours in total to complete the whole thing. And the debate is open:
What do you do with it once it’s done?
Some people think you should frame it, some others believe you should put it back in its box and gift it to someone. I haven’t decided yet. For now, I’m keeping it on the table in our bedroom, like a trophy.
Le Husband had some strong opinions on this new hobby of mine and one night, he let me know what those opinions were. One innocent night, over dinner, he had the audacity to compare it to a videogame, following with “basically, you’re a gamer”. I felt attacked and shocked so we had a 30-minute debate. Thankfully, there was a referee to evaluate our reasonings, my friend Elena.
I argued that it couldn’t be like a videogame because a) it’s analogic. b) there’s no narrative story, you just have to put some pieces together to see the full picture. c) it’s almost like painting or drawing: but with cardboard tiny pieces. d) my grandmother could play it.
I thought my opening argument was solid, I had the support of the referee until Le Husband dropped “they’re on the same aisle at Target”.
I’m still looking for a way to have my revenge. If you have any ideas. Please, don’t be shy.
Look, Le Husband, a jigsaw puzzle isn’t a videogame because I would’ve never learned all of the following points from a videogame.
HERE ARE THE 12 THINGS I LEARNED FROM MY DEAR FRIEND, JIGSAW PUZZLE
(keep in mind these findings are highly applicable to other life situations, that’s, uhm… the whole point of this essay, okay, good. Uhm, here it goes)