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| My Christmas puzzle from my daughter, Kelly |
The night after Christmas Day, our
California daughter said, “Mom, let’s begin your new puzzle.”
Considering she
presented me with the beautiful gift the day before, I replied, “Sure!” It
seemed the perfect way to enjoy one of the two nights she and her husband spent
in our house—the home where we celebrated Christmases during her junior and
senior high school and college years before she left the nest.
“Dad, do you want
to join us?” Kelly asked.
“No thanks,” he
said, and settled into conversation with our son-in-law, Steve.
Kelly and I rolled
up the dining room tablecloth on one end and emptied 1,000 pieces onto the pad.
“That’s a lot of puzzling. We won’t finish this in your two nights here,” I
said.
“We had fun with
the puzzle you gave us a few Christmases ago,” Kelly replied.
So, we enjoyed
matching pieces until 11 P.M. Meanwhile, I determined to appreciate the slow, solitary
process of completing the lovely picture of a bee skep encircled by wildflowers
and honeybees.
The following day,
Steve, Kelly, and I lunched on delicious African food in downtown Detroit and visited
her younger sister in her workplace. Then we picked up my grandson from Wayne
State’s campus to shop with us on Canfield Street. Thus, the puzzle didn’t
interest us when we returned home.
After dinner, relaxing
around the puzzle pieces, I asked Kelly, “Have you made your goals for 2023?”
She nodded.
“Wilderness backpacking for one.”
“Oh yes, that’s
why you wanted the REI gift card for Christmas,” I remembered.
“And I’d like to
learn to play chess.”
“Me too!”
When a chessboard appeared
in the first part of my second novel several years ago, I questioned my
characters. “You sure about this? I know nothing about the game.”
“Trust
us,” they said. “Playing chess makes a nimble mind.”
I
did trust them. For I’ve learned, as Madeleine L’Engle declares in her memoir,
“A Circle of Quiet,” creativity is an act of complete faith. Truly, the woman
who wrote the children’s classic, “A Wrinkle in Time,” speaks with authority.
I confess, when
Kelly and Steve drove away yesterday morning for the airport and left me
profoundly lonely and without a puzzle partner, I laid down to rest. Decided I
wanted a nimble mind.
While building the
five parts of my second novel, the chessboard appeared throughout the story
without necessity of one detour from writing for chess lessons. Now, under the direction
of a small publisher in Richmond, Virginia, I have a brief window of time where
I’d like to learn the game, try my eye and hand on the board before Matewan Garden Club is released this
coming spring.
Dear Reader, those
puzzle pieces on the dining room table compete with chess lessons, ask for time
with Kelly’s gift. Both are worthy activities to achieve. Truth is, I could use
the mental exercise and break from words.
I’ll finish the
puzzle—clear the space for a chessboard and thirty-two chessmen.
