June 2022 "Puzzling Times"

​“Puzzling Times”
 
I just assumed puzzles were for winter, when the days are short and cold.  I began to notice that the guests that came in the winter months enjoyed working on my puzzles and to be honest I liked the support with them. I had upped the ante on my puzzles, getting larger ones, sometimes a 1,000-pieces and some didn’t have defined borders.  I’d start to feel stuck, then guests would come and magically parts of the puzzle would be put together. This happened so often that I got a puzzle board with drawers and ordered more puzzles from Amazon. I like bright colored, whimsical ones with animals and I like larger pieces, easier to see if they accidently fall on the colorful area rug. It doesn’t always work. Most of my puzzles end up with a piece or two missing which I can only assume got sucked up into the vacuum cleaner.
 
This Spring I continued with puzzles and I noticed that guests really do like to sit with them. Puzzles can be a solitary activity or they can be a group activity. I noticed that people can make conversation while working on a puzzle or be comfortable being together in silence working on a puzzle. Puzzles are calming and stimulating. With people so often buried in their phones, disengaged it’s so special to see people do something as simple and complicated as a puzzle being quietly present.
 
Last week, I started a puzzle, 750-pieces that had no defined border.  It was of a farm scene with a piggy playing hide and go seek with a puppy, cat, horse, cow, and baby chicks.  Adorable and bright art work in larger pieces made it easy to distinguish what pieces belonged where but the shapes made it challenging to fit the pieces together.  A guest came for an extended stay, visiting a sister with Cancer and getting together for another sibling’s birthday.  She was in need of some quiet time and the puzzle was the answer.  She made great progress with it during her stay and she felt bad as she put it “for taking it over.”
“No, no, that’s what the puzzles are for,” I assured her.  She thanked me for allowing her to work on the puzzle.  
The next day, a different guest, a boy of eight, worked on the puzzle.  He didn’t have much time to spare for the puzzle, although he wished he had. He put the kitty together, the animal I had been struggling with earlier that morning. He proudly showed me what he had gotten done while his mother and brother were packing the car. 
“Great job!” I exclaimed.
“This is the best bed and breakfast I’ve ever been to!” He announced. “Because it’s my first one! But I’ll always compare the rest to this one.”
 
Connection through puzzles.  Isn’t that interesting.  At Crow Moon Healing, we believe that connection can be as simple and beautiful as working on a puzzle.