In the car on the commute to an all day meeting my colleague looked at me out of the corner of her eye and asked ‘do you get jiggy at Christmas?” I can honestly say no-one has EVER asked me that question before but I knew exactly what she meant. The ritual of the jigsaw puzzle. It’s a thing and, yes, we were planning to get jiggy on Boxing Day.
My sister and my mum have an established Boxing Day tradition many years in the making. A new WASGIJ, plenty of snacks and drinks, preferably a view of the lake out the window, and no expectations on their time beyond putting those pesky pieces into order and revealing the picture.
Tradition demands the puzzle be set up on a card table. History tells us that table will be bumped countless time by careless hips walking between the fridge and the television resulting in occasion, sometimes catastrophic, disruption to the pieces.
There’s a system, you see. I like to sort by colour and then start with the border. I tend to see the picture, not the shapes. This, my friends, is not a great way to approach a puzzle but I simply cannot see the shapes and patterns in any logical manner. Give me letters and I can pick a word a mile away. Ask me to find a shape with a certain orientation and I’ll stare blankly for hours. My family, bless them, are far more blessed with the ability to recognise pattern. It leads to some loud (but loving) taunting. ‘How could you not see that? It’s right in front of you!” Mysteriously they’ll reach into a pile and pluck out the exact piece for the blob of colour in the corner and, voila, the eye / aeroplane / chair appears as if it had alway been there. Honestly, it’s like magic.
While we’re on this topic, a friend shared an awesome solution for people who are jigsaw puzzle shape-blind like me. It’s obvious when you see it, right?
As we drive my colleague tells me she has a cupboard full of puzzle boxes. I’m enthralled by her story of bringing a puzzle into the centre of a newly set up open plan office space. A bench located conveniently near the photocopier served as the perfect platform for the pieces to be spread out and for workers to linger while waiting for their turn at the printer. That office rapidly developed a strong culture of communication and fun all centred around the jigsaw puzzle.
She picks up puzzles secondhand from the op shop. I’d worry there might be a piece missing, I tell her. Not yet, she nods happily. Jigsaw puzzle owners wouldn’t do that to someone else. Ah. She’s probably right. What is it about puzzlers that creates such a high standard and sense of community responsibility?
I argue it’s the scar of past experience. Have you ever spent hours staring at the last five pieces of a puzzle and then realised there are still six spots to fill? It’s an anguish hard to get over. Hopes are dashed, possibility wiped, effort wasted. You search under the mat, in the crevices of the chair, in your sister’s pocket, anywhere it might have been swept away or knocked off or hooked up. You don’t want to concede defeat at this point. This is not a sunk cost fallacy. This is actual lost time 😉.
A jigsaw, you see, is both the journey AND the destination.
Unlike other pursuits where you can make minor course corrections along the way and still find yourself achieving the goal you set out for (roughly), a jigsaw relies on one path and one outcome. No give.
This is counter-intuitive to me, champion of ‘all roads lead to Rome’ (or variations on that theme). ’There’s ALWAYS a way, I urge confidently. ‘Unless you’re missing a jigsaw puzzle piece.’ If that’s the case, my friends, my advice to you is to stop the moment you discover its absence. This journey is not for you. Abandon ship. This one has already sunk.
I imagine our pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago will be a bit like solving a jigsaw puzzle. I’ve got an overview of all the pieces and have sorted most of it into categories like clothing, accommodation, gear, food, language. Most of the edge pieces, the dates and flights there and back, are already in place. I’m not exactly sure how it will come together but I’m really excited to see what the picture looks like when the last piece falls into place. But I don’t want to rush the process. Hopefully I can find a way to be present even while on the move and enjoy the wonder of each strangely shaped piece as it finds its obvious place along the Way.
Two new 1000-piece puzzles were under the tree this Christmas. One for each of the kidults home for the holidays. I’m unable to discard the puzzles of my childhood and they still sit in my cupboard. Untouched for years now, the sight of them is enough to trigger a wave of nostalgia and a sense of satisfaction. The first was a masterful effort by Mr M, Himself and the divine NannaJ. Buoyed by the success we borrowed a WASGIJ to keep the energy flowing. The dining table is still covered with the pieces though the outline is defined. Hopefully we finish it before Easter but I don’t hold out great hopes. The jiggy-magic of Boxing Day has faded too much.
Do you get jiggy wi’ it over Christmas? Send a pic of your last completed puzzle!!! See below the picture of the completed 2024 masterpiece in our house. Yes. I’m not the only nerd who lives at Ardley.
