Putting the Pieces Together

Sometime in February, Red and I got into puzzles in a major way. The first puzzle was of WWII home front posters and had lots of text, which made it pretty easy. Since then, they have gotten progressively harder. The last puzzle I picked out was a painting of Cinderella's castle, including a vast expanse of blue sky that took a lifetime to complete. We cursed that sky many, many times, and Red vowed that the next puzzle (her choice) would not be nearly as difficult. She settled on a kind of Gothic painting of a woman against a Venetian backdrop, with a large ghostly mask hovering in the background.

We have been working on that puzzle now for something like six months. It has not been going well. In fact, there was a large period where we abandoned it altogether. The problem lies in that it is largely made up of shades of grey and has no real hard lines.*

Since coming back from America, I have refocused my energy and actually made some progress, relying almost entirely on focusing on the shape of the puzzle piece as opposed to the pattern. It's exacting and tedious. That said, there is nothing that compares to the satisfaction of finding the piece you are looking for and having it lock into place.

It's obvious, I know, to talk about jigsaw puzzle or to use puzzle metaphors when discussing one's life, but I can't help but see the connection this week. I have spent an unusual amount of time at the University, helping set up for and then attending this year's inaugural Sidelights on Shakespeare seminar and going to class. My loan finally came through, rent has been paid for the next six months, I set up our gas and water accounts and we figured out how to turn the heat on in the new flat. I had my first supervision today and feel I am in a good place, starting to move forward on this whole crazy adventure. I have things to go to and stuff to do and I have been social and productive and it feels like I have re-established my place here, all of which is excellent.

It's like—dare I say it?—the pieces are actually coming together.

Let's hope I didn't just jinx it.



*Re-reading this after finishing the post, it looks like I am trying to further connect the Venice puzzle to Life through the whole shades of grey thing. I wasn't! This observation is just me, bitching about a literal puzzle. A really, really obnoxious grey puzzle.