Tag: values in life

Life Lessons From Covid Puzzle Time

Time.

We’ve had an abundance of it as a result of the #Covid19 pandemic which has made me think a lot about the way I spend my time.

What inspired me was the sharp increase in guitar and musical instrument sales as well as puzzles; the “things you can do when you have an abundance of time on your hands” activities. My neighbors and I have two large tables downstairs in a community room which presently has no less than 4 puzzles on them. It’s the coolest thing as it’s not uncommon to find boxes of puzzles on each table as many residents have been contributing to our endeavor. We now have 4 full cabinets of puzzles, most of which we have completed and some of which have been put on hold because of the colors being too close to each other.

We’re at the point where we’ll complete a thousand piece puzzle and then shift to something easier like a 100 – 300 piece puzzle that usually is left on the table after someone visits Walmart or the Dollar Store.

During Christmas, I tried to order some additional Liberty puzzles online and was amazed at how many of them were sold out. I love @libertypuzzles and I think I wasn’t the only one who thought of them around Christmas time when shopping for puzzles for family and friends.

This (below) was one of my favorites. I refer to it as the “work on the puzzle – crave coffee” puzzle. We purchased it for $1.00 from the Dollar Store.

When working on a puzzle of Venice, a group of us decided that we were never going to go to Venice because of how difficult the puzzle was – even though 3 of the people who helped put it together had traveled to Venice at least two time in the past. Whenever we would get really frustrated I’d say to them “come on you guys – you’ve been there before this should be easy!” which just made them more frustrated. When we finally finished it, back into the cabinet it went with an abundance of relief that it was completed.

I May Be A Puzzinstigator

So before I proceed further with this story, you should know that I am one of the puzzinstigators (puzzle instigators); one of the people who can’t stand it when the puzzle table has nothing on it. I may be one of the people who takes trips to Walmart, the dollar store, or Amazon to make sure we have enough puzzles to keep us occupied. It is a great bonding experience and yes, it’s nice to be able to select which puzzle should be the next one to complete.

When the pandemic was at it’s worst and we had reached 200,000 deaths in our country, I found myself feeling more depressed and quite homesick. I went online and ordered 3 puzzles, one that was a Vermont country setting, another that was a Maine Lighthouse, and the last one which was a map of New England. The writing on the New England Map was so small that there were several calls to “put it back in the box and do it later!” “I have no interest in going to New England – ever!” one of them said.

Like most of the others, we ended up completing it and this morning I sent it to a friend from home in Rhode Island because I wanted the puzzle to go somewhere where it would feel loved and appreciated – because you know, puzzles are sensitive like that.

The puzzle pictured at the top of this post has been our nemesis since the beginning of the year. One night when we were watching Jeopardy (and yelling out the answers), one of the residents came in with a paper bag and walked over to me and said “I have some puzzles that I picked up at the Church – they were giving them away for free..” “Excellent, thank you!” I said.

She pulled out three boxes of puzzles but the one above was the one that got to me. As Robert Redford said in “The Natural” (a movie I have watched at least 10 times during the last year), “there’s nothing like a farm.” The colors, texture and so many different shades of blue and green; this was a wonderful puzzle. The other thing I loved about it was that even though the puzzle was 1000 pieces, some of the pieces were quite large which made me think this would be an easy puzzle for all of us to put together and that we would have it completed in record time.

Wrong.

It’s now May – the puzzle was completed only a few hours ago. No less than 6 of us worked on putting it together, but on any given night we were lucky if we connected more than 5 – 10 pieces.

This past Saturday night I came to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore so I sat at the puzzle table for hours, sorting out the pieces by colors and shapes – trying to get to a place where we could have it completed. What often happens when we have puzzles like this is that some of the other residents will say “give it up, put it back in the box and do something easier” which sounds really tempting right? – except when you’re one of the people who has worked so assiduously on putting it together. Even after only a few pieces are connected, once you start, it’s very hard to look back or give up.

And I think that, for me, this has been one of the major lessons of this pandemic.

Yes, there are times when I am frustrated, times when I want to take the puzzle apart before it is complete and just put the pieces back in the box for another day instead of taking a long hard stare at colors, shapes and textures. It is easier to just say “forget it, I’ll do this later.”

It’s quite the metaphor when thinking about these last several months.

But completing puzzle after puzzle after puzzle with friends and working together while staying socially distanced, with masks and hand sanitizer has been a blessing that has kept a lot of us going and having quality conversations away from politics, Covid or the traumatic events that have affected every state in our nation.

“Here – I think that piece goes next to it.” instead of “what? you voted for (insert opposition candidate here)?”

I have a much greater appreciation for time and the value of conversations around interests and events of the day. I also appreciate the thoughtfulness of our friend who thought of us when she saw all the puzzles on a table at her church – and ended up bringing them home.

As tragic as the covid pandemic has been, and continues to be, there are several life lessons which should not be overlooked. The importance of relationships and friendships, thoughtfulness, and most importantly, the value of time.

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Why I Will Never Own A Gun

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I don’t want to hear it anymore. 

I’ve seen post after post about gun rights. Who should own a gun and who shouldn’t. Here’s the thing: I will never, ever, ever own a gun.

Yeah, I know – you’ve owned guns because you’ve used them hunting in the state where you’re from. And that’s an acceptable reason to own and use a gun and yes, it’s your 2nd Amendment right and I support that.  Not a fan of automatic assault rifles that can shoot several bullets in a few seconds is all I’m sayin’

But as we sit on the eve of having anyone in the world able to create an unregistered weapon from a 3D printer recipe on the internet – whelp, that’s where I’m stepping off of this train of the second amendment debate.

Here’s the article about 3D guns

I grew up with guns (several of them) in our home. Every single day, I only had to look up at the wall in our family room to see my father’s very extensive collection of guns. From the early 1800’s on forward, he had several guns, pistols and rifles and swords. He hunted as a young boy, joined the Navy and knew (was taught by his dad and trained by the Navy) how to use his guns. The ammunition was kept separately and far away from the guns he had (Mom – an ER Nurse – made sure of this).

The picture above is a photo of my grandmother – she didn’t hunt. She was a fisherman who used a drop line to catch fish. See a fishing pole in this picture? – It’s because there isn’t one. The Northeast is known for fishing. Watch any fisherman head miles out into the North Atlantic during the late summer / early Fall months when hurricanes and strong Nor’easters are prevalent and you will know how tough fishing can be. In our family, our freezer was filled with frozen fish that helped keep food on our table through the winter months. Ask me to join you for a dinner consisting of bluefish or mackerel and I will politely turn you down because I have had far too much… okay, maybe Cod.

My grandmother’s mom died shortly after giving birth to her. A few years later, her father was struck and killed by a cable car when he was crossing the street, leaving my grandmother in the care of her older sister and her sister’s boyfriend.  They didn’t have an easy life. But my grandmother made it through to marry my grandfather and give birth to my mom and her brother (my uncle).

To this day, I have never met a woman as firmly grounded in her values as my grandmother. How do I know this? – Because I tried to buy a gun.

It didn’t go over well and it wasn’t even real.

Once when I was visiting my grandmother, she gave me some money and said to go to the little store down the street to get whatever I wanted. So off I went and walked down the street trying to decide what I was going to purchase.

Upon reviewing all of the toys available to me, I selected a very small, bright orange squirt gun. (Nope, not kidding, it was a squirt gun). It was about two inches long and seemed to hold a lot of water in it. It wasn’t even one of those semi-automatic super soaker squirt guns that you see today; it was an “old” one (yeah, you probably weren’t even born yet so just keep reading..). Happily, I walked home, ready to fill it and squirt people – aka my grandmother (who was taking care of me while my parents were away).

When she saw the gun I had purchased she became apoplectic. “Take it back!” she demanded. I couldn’t understand why. “Take it back!” she said again. “Little girls do not use guns!” (I was six or seven years old at the time).

I walked back to the store, sad and dejected because she did not approve of my hunter / gatherer & squirt decision. I traded it in and returned with a super ball which I played with outside until it was time for dinner.

Over dinner, my grandmother explained to me that yes, some people owned guns that they used for hunting but that I did not need one. She also explained that police officers carried guns to protect those of us in our community and again affirmed that I would never need a gun. If there was a conflict that needed to be resolved, she explained, then this was what our brains were for. That we used our ability to communicate with each other tactfully and in a way that reduced any potential for violence.

“Use your head”, she said “that’s what it’s for; to communicate with each other and resolve arguments and misunderstandings. And if you ever need help, ask us!”

To this day, I have never forgotten the conviction she had during that conversation. 3 degrees and 2 graduate certificates later, I know for sure that I have enough knowledge, conviction, empathy, tact and compassion to know that I have a keen ability to resolve a lot of different conflicts. Guns will not be playing a part in my life (at least not of my choosing anyway).

As much as I often miss my grandmother, I’m glad that she is not around to see what the internet and 3D printing have produced as it relates to guns.

And while I will never know if guns in the possession of someone else will ever affect my life or the lives of my family and friends, I have learned that there are just some things in life that you can’t predict or control.

After 9/11 and United 93 (the flight that crashed in Shanksville, PA), I also learned that you can’t predict what will happen if terrorists take over your flight and try to fly it into a building or something else.  And that you certainly can’t predict who will stand up and try to overpower them, even if there is the potential that they will also die.

But this is where my head goes whenever there are increasing discussions about guns and gun violence:

Sometimes when I’m sitting by myself at a gate in an airport waiting for a plane, I look around for “that guy” or “that girl”. The one I think looks like they have the ability to stand up, fight back and overpower the terrorists and try to save those who are on the plane. I look at their posture, stance and non-verbals – trying to find the heroes among us – the ones you don’t notice and don’t know who walk among us every day. To me, these are people who don’t need guns. They have a keen, MacGyver like sense to figure out what to do and how to do it, quietly and collaboratively in a tribal, patriotic “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers” sort of way – no matter who they are, no matter where they’re from, no matter what their gender, religion, education, nationality, socioeconomic status or sexual orientation is.

They’re just caring, compassionate people looking to help those who need help even though they don’t know them and even though they may die themselves.

They may use guns for hunting or drop lines to fish and / or their brain to communicate. But what’s equally as important is what Martin Luther King once described as the “content of their character”.