CrazyGamer

I’ve been a big gamer my whole life, but this past year or so, I’ve been shying away from longer, more involved games, I’ve devoured many great casual games (Bookworm Adventures springs to mind), sometimes beating them in as few as two sittings, but I just cannot commit myself to anything tiiat would require an emotional investment (Obiivian, Prey, or even Half-Life 2, for god’s sake). Is something wrong with me?

Sunday evening I tell my husband I want something to do, something sedentary, I don’t know but not reading not thinking, I feel scattered, vaguely dissatisfied—not sex not ice cream but something mindlessly involving—not television—something for the hands to take my mind off whatever I don’t know and my husband goes out and brings me back jigsaw puzzles: thousands of pieces of autumn landscape and a weathered farm in cardboard boxes and that’s it, that’s just what I had in mind if I had anything in mind. I choose the farm because it’s smaller and easier (the landscape is all fallen or falling leaves), because it has a road with a boy and a fawn-colored cow and their legs will be easy to find. I start with the border, rummage in the box for straight edges, build a frame of reference at the same time turning all the pieces face up, sorting and grouping: the obvious sky the packed dirt road as straight as the road by my uncle’s wheat farm that summer the veils of heat above blacktop the guileless grasses I find the cow’s muzzle the boy’s blue sweater it must be late autumn late in the afternoon there’s a breeze cool and full of promise as the creek that bordered my aunt’s truck farm here’s the rusty farmhouse the barn’s gaping doorway the place inside where light stops my uncle Bill kept cows once and chickens he was surprised I wanted to take the warm eggs out from under wanted to ride on the green combine because my mother didn’t when she was a kid but I needed to let go to be lifted up to a new place a different view to trust his hands were hard and warm the dusty coveralls his hair wheat-colored I wanted to touch to see everything as much as possible all at once to belong to take part and be myself now I place the uncertain ones together at one side maybe the barn roof or shady part of the driveway impossible to tell sometimes till most of the pieces are in maybe the path beyond the border to the marbled fields the harvested ones I search by color by shape for any clue to what comes next fooled by the similar surprised by sudden recognition how often the mind gives up what the eye held clear I know the farm the house and grounds will go quickly now my husband once owned part of a farm he misses the natural order watching the hawks the mice in the grass everything in its place and I miss it for him with him want it for him it all goes so much faster toward the last and then it’s not really a picture you can keep the process is all that matters after all not the product the end result.

Still I pause to admire my work before I break it down, to silently thank the boy, the cow, and the photographer, the puzzle company, the cutting machine. I am thankful for pieces that fit the larger picture for even a glimpse of how it turns out grateful for my husband his love his knowing what is needed for this moment of holding together when everything falls into place.