Skip to main content

1500 Pieces

2I reluctantly, very reluctantly, awoke from a very tactile memory dream. I had a card table set up in the living room, upon it, a partially worked jigsaw puzzle, a 1500-piece monstrosity. All the pieces were turned right-side up and separate sections were assembled, like little rafts or islands ready to be connected up with the mainland.

Like days gone past, I'd scan the table for certain color combinations and shapes then try to fit them in.  This time, I was looking for leafless dark branches fingering out on a background of robin's egg blue sky, my favorite -- high contrast. Unlike days gone by, the kodak-color, high gloss pictured lid is not propped up on the corner of the table lending guidance. I notice the deepening shadows in the room and go for a lamp to put a little light on the subject.

The lamp is an ancient relic, a yellowed marble-patterned spike with an equally yellowed lampshade. Plugging in the thick braided cord with it's oblong yellowed plug, produced sparks and revealed fraying ends. Though I felt the bizarre pulsating, vibrating shock to my fingertips down to my foot soles, and noted the power dip as the light dimmed and returned, I set the lamp right upon the cardboard-based table.

With the illumination, I was able to see the few misplaced pieces and removed a middle piece from the straight-edged border, a mistake I never would've made, (obviously a little person or a husband was here). Also obvious, the border was incomplete, (never happened with a puzzle I worked).

I set about collecting the straight-edged pieces to work the border when I realize I am missing pieces, many pieces. I check my carpeted floor to find...Lots of pieces...And another partially completed puzzle that my daughter left out on the floor. (funny how I failed to notice that before) I look upon it with fondness, (somehow I've intuited the fleeting specialness of this memory/reality mash-up).

Anxiety kicks in as I realize my husband will arrive soon and I've got a mess on the livingroom floor. As I begin to clean up, destroy my daughter's creation, it dawns on me that she's arriving with him. Oh, what have I done?! One puzzle led to two and became six...Unfinished puzzles...And one was a custom photo puzzle of my daughter with her boyfriend (that she broke up with) but in my dream, they got back together.

Wow! Lots of insight into my psyche there!!!

I wish I could summon back my dream.  The memory of the physical sensation of touching the coated cardboard puzzle pieces was exquisite -- the sharp and rounded edges, the smooth of the photo side compared to the dull gray rougher backside. I haven't felt that feeling for years.

As for cleaning up the mess...What mess? That's my baby girl's creativity! Screw Better Homes and Gardens!!!!



Labels:
Location: 2720 E Madison St, Seattle, WA 98112, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Remember...

I remember catching fireflies,  putting them in a jar, as a girl of five. I picked pears off a tree that overhung an alleyway on my route home from school, then enjoyed the forbidden fruit. .I had a golden cat who chased a gray mouse through our living room sending my mother, 3-year old sister, and me screaming atop the sofa and chairs. We lived in a farmhouse and I watched Romper Room. A daddy longlegs skittered across my dirty kid legs as I teeter-tottered on a broken kitchen chair back. I played grocery store and laid out a bedroll for group nap time in preschool. We lived in an apartment attached to a bakery. My maternal grandparents visited and a photo was snapped. Grandma held Dawn and Grandpa held me. I held Grandpa's chin. Walking through the back of the flour-caked kitchen, I saw scrumptious pastries and colorful toys stuck in the cupcakes with my hungry kids eyes. We lived in a two-story apartment building next door to a large farmer's field.  That field was my...
3 comments
Read more

Lashing Out

Fed up. Sick of hearing, "I'm sorry."  Apologies don't erase the pain you inflict on me. You pull my pubic hair. Your nitrile gloves pull the hair from my head. Not once in a while but day in and day out. You turn me in a manner that suits you rather than in a manner that doesn't stress my body. Why won't you use the pad and sheet to turn me as one unit? Instead, you allow my body to twist as you hold me one-handed. How good you are at your job. What part of "my muscles are dying" don't you understand?
Post a Comment
Read more

Managed

Managed care, do not get me started. It is the bane of my existence and my savior. If quadriplegia has curtailed my activities, and it has, then being in a home has curtailed even more. I've had to dumb it down and set my standards low. Gone, are the halcyon days of getting in my wheelchair to go for a stroll or sit in the sun, or even sit in the sun room. Neither the nurses, nor patient care technicians, know how to put me in my wheelchair. Seriously. My chair has head controls and it is a bafflement. Most caregivers don't even realize I have head controls. First, they hit the left head pad when they lift the armrest which turns the chair on. Next, they sling me over and place me in the chair. The problem? My head, naturally, rests on the headrest, which accelerates and drives the chair and is beyond my control. Running over a caregiver or running myself into an obstruction are very real consequences of their ignorance. What could be worse? The caregivers remain clueless abo...
Post a Comment
Read more