Sometime last year, I bought a jigsaw puzzle. The box had an image of the Leaning Tower of Pisa surrounded by blue, blue sky and with tourists milling around the base. Clearly, my locked down rear was craving some arm chair travel. ‘Such lovely clouds’ I thought as I added it to my shopping cart, not realising that those very clouds would become the subject of my unadulterated hatred.
It was my last ditch attempt to find a pandemic tradition for the family. Baking, gardening and mandala colouring had all failed. Mostly because, I sucked at baking, killed all the plants and found colouring inside the lines stressful. We also needed to do something together as a family that didn’t involve raised voices and door slamming.
A friend of mine had been sharing pictures of the puzzles she and her family made and I was charmed. It looked so cozy and fun and together-ish. We could do this too right?
And so the Leaning Tower of Pisa came home with me.
“Is it pizza?” asked the nine- year-old looking at the box.
“No, it’s a puzzle.”
“A puzzle made of pizza?”
“No, a puzzle made of cardboard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.”
“Oh. Boring.”
I believe I yelled about ungrateful children. A door was slammed and the box was put away. Oh well, maybe that was our pandemic tradition.
The puzzle was forgotten till last week when it came out during a clean up inspired by the new Minimalists documentary on Netflix. I decided to be brave and attempt it myself.
As I dumped the pieces on the dining table the 12-year-old came out.
“Can I help?”
Success!
The nine-year-old, who was not speaking to either of us for reasons not relevant to this column (one of us called him a sociopath and the other one laughed) finally caved in after an hour of mocking us from the sofa. And so pieces were flipped over and the tower was assembled. Slowly. (‘Why is this taking so long?’) Frustratingly (‘Why do all the blue sky pieces look the same?’) Achingly. (‘Can I please get a foot massage?’)
The children children-splained to me —“Amma, see you have to find the pieces that fit together and then… fit them together? Do you understand?” When we couldn’t find a piece, they insisted that it was never packed in the box or stared accusingly at the dog.
The puzzle took up most of the dining table and the better half of three days. It drew me away from my workstation and the kids out of their boy caves. Every time one of us walked by, we would try and do a little bit, the success or failure of which would be conveyed by ‘Got one!’ Or ‘Whose idea was it to do this?”
The kids squabbled, we made plans to go see the tower one day and ate pizza. We shared our frustration and kept saying ‘Let’s just give up!’
But we didn’t. We kept at it.
And it was nice.
We’re now decided between a five hundred-piece puzzle…of some castle that the kids insists is Hogwarts or Santorini. All those white buildings look so beautiful.
Menaka Raman
@menakaraman
The writer’s philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me