In praise of jigsaw puzzles

There is something wonderful about doing a jigsaw. You start out with a box and you have some idea that inside is eventually going to be a large version of the picture on the box, but sometimes bits are covered up by the title and sometimes there isn't a picture.

I usually start with the edge pieces and once the framework is complete putting the content inside it is the idea. There are usually prominent parts that are easier to put together and then other areas where you really have to examine the pieces closely because you're not really sure until you get down close whether they fit and if they are the right ones.

Then eventually you get left with just the really tough part where everything actually seems the same (like the sky) and you just creep on putting in piece after piece in a monotonous effort that stretches sanity. At this point I sometimes lay the pieces out systematically and try every piece in turn every way round in each space until the right one is found. The smart way of course is to look for the notches and grooves and match the notches to the grooves, there is always a perfect match.

As you near completion and have maybe a hundred pieces on the table it is easy to think that along the way some have gone missing.

If you have been careful though, kept the puzzle together and followed through then you get to the last part where there are maybe thirty pieces left, they all go in so easily and then the fight over who puts in the last piece!

It's so amazing when it goes in and everything is perfect.

Only then can you look at the jigsaw and see the whole picture, and bits that seemed unfathomably strange make up the most beautiful bits of the picture.

I think that's a bit like life. And maybe the Church?

Footnote:

Once all the pieces are in and you've stared at the perfect, completed picture for a wee while, there is that humbling moment that you realise you can no longer justify hogging the dining room table any more and you crumple it all up and replace it in the box! I think that's a shame so I have started photographing my jigsaws so I can look back on them because in reality you're never going to do that same 3000 piece puzzle again, now are you?

Pass them on to someone else, donate them to your library or a worthy cause! A completed jigsaw is like a sign of the end times.

Anyway there go a couple of my memories...