The latest drama from my sleepy corner of the land involves jigsaws. Allow me to piece the story together (ho ho).
The issues are varied and complex.
They go beyond people taking the jigsaws from the phone box library and not returning them, because - brace yourself - some jigsaws are being wilfully emptied into the street.
Two youths on bikes are the likely culprits (based on what, I’m not sure).
They can be easily identified in the winter as they wear hoodies pulled up over their heads, but in this warmer weather, they are far less easy to spot.
But one thing we do know: this bike-riding pair of monsters are intent on jigsaw-related mischief.
*
I’m sorry, I’m not mocking. Jigsaws are one of our top sellers in the charity shop, so I really should take this terribly naughty behaviour more seriously.
I had actually wondered what was going on before spotting the Facebook discussion.
On my walk down to the shop the other morning there was such a steady trail of pieces leading me into town, that it crossed my mind that this could be one of those heavenly signs - like people who lose loved ones, then feel comforted when robins or butterflies land on their shoulders.
What message might be behind the appearance of these random cardboard shapes? What was the universe telling me?
That life is a delightful puzzle? That I’m a hot mess and need to get my shit back in the box?
*
Each morning, after feeding the cats, I make a cup of tea and turn my chair so it faces the patio doors.
“What are you looking at?” snarled the teen yesterday.
“My lovely garden,” I replied, cringing inwardly, because I sounded eighty.
But it does me good to sit for a good chunk of time and just let my mind wander. Part prayer, part daydream, part how do I stop those bloody slugs eating my green beans?
*
This morning I sat down feeling a bit rubbish.
Yesterday had been a bumpy one and the cats’ incessant screeching for food from 5am hadn’t helped.
I pictured myself emptying my life before God like a hoodied youngster upending a jigsaw in the street:
“Here you are,” I prayed angrily, shaking every last scruffy piece from the corners of the box, “This is me right now - all over your floor. Lord.”
I hope God doesn’t mind me being a bit spicy.
I like to think of him raising an eyebrow and nodding slowly with a smile,
“Yep, bring it all. ‘Come to me, all who are weary’ - I see it: you’re weary.”
*
I noticed on my way to the bus stop yesterday that the jigsaw library phonebox looked as if it had undergone a restock. The shelves were full of colourful boxes - surely an enticing sight for any puzzle lover.
I wondered if locals had been prompted to donate jigsaws or buy new ones. Maybe a few folks had been nudged to return those they’d borrowed then forgotten about.
It’s good though: it would have been a shame for such a nice community project to be derailed by bored teenage hooligans looking for fun.
Oh goodness: I hope it wasn’t my bored teenage hooligan looking for fun.
*
My quiet times are less an hour of devout meditation and more a jumble of daydreaming, worrying and picking dandruff from the cat’s coat. But I’m there with my random jigsaw shapes, letting God make sense of the chaos.
Some pieces are swollen and dog-eared where I’ve made them too important, but been determined to hammer them into the picture anyway.
Some pieces are so indistinct and blurry that I struggle to see how they will ever contribute to a larger picture.
*
But as I sit with God surrounded by the mess of my anxieties and questions, I become aware that although the picture in the centre of the jigsaw is empty and unclear, the puzzle does now at least have edges.
Huh, I think, draining the last of my tea and noticing that I do feel a little more hopeful: there is a frame, whether I see the emerging picture or not.
*
There is a frame, whether that image turns out like I’d hoped or whether it’s a one that I didn’t notice on the front of the box when I first picked it up.
There is a frame for the pieces of my life, however scattered I may feel. However tossed all over the pavement like soggy cardboard confetti, however squashed by the outsized tyres of marauding tinkers in jersey separates, however just plain messy it all is - there is a frame.
There is a frame and I am always held safely within it.