October Puzzles

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The holiday season should begin at Halloween.  In my mind, if I can make it to Halloween, I can make it through the rest of the year.  Besides, the holidays are the only time I allow myself to work on jigsaw puzzles.  Puzzles slow cognitive aging, according to an article or two on the National Institute of Health, but I’d do them anyway.  I’ve loved jigsaw puzzles since I was a kid.  Part of our holiday tradition is that “Santa” leaves a nice one under the tree.  This year I sent a note to the North Pole requesting a Halloween-themed puzzle.  It arrived for my birthday instead.  One October weekend while recovering from either a flu or Covid vaccine (I get them at the same time) I decided to put it together.  I wasn’t concentrating well enough to read or write.

We have a couple other Halloween-themed puzzles.  Last year, to celebrate the publication of Sleepy Hollow as American Myth, I put together the one we have of John Quidor’s painting of the Headless Horseman chasing Ichabod Crane.  We also have a puzzle with horror movie posters on it.  Maybe it’s time to start a new Halloween tradition.  With things so expensive these days, tricking out the house for treaters is costly.  I went into a Spirit Halloween earlier in October and saw costumes priced at $100 (almost enough to buy some of my books!).  I know Halloween is a major spending holiday now, but that puts things out of reach.  Besides, we now have three Halloween-themed puzzles, so I can rotate them and use what we already have.  And maybe help this creaky old brain from declining too swiftly.

Puzzles satisfy a need for completion.  Who doesn’t like the satisfaction of getting something done?  And they leave you with something fun to look at for a few days.  Of course, over Christmas I tend to work on them with family, and lots of interesting conversation can take place around the puzzle table.  And my mind turns to the wonders of the holidays starting around August, but I wait until later in the season to reward myself with things like puzzles.  (Scary movies are fair game year-round, of course.)  Puzzles are kind of a parable for life.  They represent taking chaos and making order out of it.  There’s the drama and fear that pieces could be missing.  The struggle to visualize what might fit into such a space when all the remaining pieces look so ordinary.  If the holiday season began earlier, puzzle-building season could be expanded to the benefit of our brains.

Castle Dreams

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It’s a real problem.  If you’re a passionate collector you eventually run up against the space issue.  A New York Times piece tells how a couple that collects puzzles had to buy an Italian castle to house their collection.  I appreciate their passion, but I operate on a more modest budget.  We bought our house going on six years ago.  Like many people raised in poverty, I’m a bit of a packrat.  When you’ve experienced a life of not being able to afford things, you tend to keep everything.  That’s an economic reality.  You spent money on this and you don’t want to waste it.  Add to that the passion of a collector and you could have a real problem.  Castle-sized.

When we were searching for houses the market was poor.  It still is.  Although a recent trip to Somerville, where we used to live, revealed massive amounts of new apartments—we were literally stunned—buying a house remains difficult.  (But all those apartments!  When we moved to Somerville in 2006 there were only a few units available, so I guess that was before it became popular.)  And we specifically needed a house where you could keep books.  (I do periodic purges and end up feeling full of regret afterwards.)  Our house has a large garage with storage space.  Not an Italian castle, but the principle is the same.  Only our garage has been taken over by aggressive squirrels.  We can’t yet afford to have the roof rebuilt (with solar panels because we have beautifully unimpeded southern exposure); we can’t lay up books where squirrel and mildew doth corrupt, so I guess we might have to consider a castle down the road.

My escape fantasy would probably be Ireland, however.  They speak English there and they have castles.  And Scotland’s just across the way.  Although I spent my doctoral years in Edinburgh, my ancestry leans more toward Ireland.  And Germany, but although they have castles I’m not sure I can revive my German well enough to get along there.  No, Ireland might be the best choice for my castle-buying dreams.  Of course, those of us who grow up poor do dream of castles.  I read about them in books.  And books beget books—this seems to be an inescapable law of nature.  I do wonder if Irish castles have problems with squirrels, though.  If I’m going to make this work it’s going to require quite a bit more money.  And thought.  It’s a real puzzle.

Photo by Reid Naaykens on Unsplash