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A 1,000-piece puzzle is a commitment. I have
no problem with 500 pieces. Even 750 feels manageable. But 1,000? Those suckers
linger on the table for months.
We start the same way every time—snapping
together the outside edge with confidence. Then we work on what's obvious: the
hot air balloon, the familiar faces, the printed words. We build around them
with certainty. And avoid the ambiguous middle for as long as possible.
Eventually, though, we're left with the sky.
Or the sand. Or the indistinguishable wash of color that refuses to make itself
known.
This is where the young ones save us. Where
we see chaos, they see possibility. Surprisingly, they are more at home in
analog uncertainty than we are—these children of tiny screens who somehow
prefer puzzles, board games, and crafts to anything with a power cord. They
sort by texture, not by color. They try the pieces we dismissed.
Lately on my morning walk, I've been
watching two men with wheelbarrows full of massive rocks, tipping them over the
edge into the sound—building their own barrier to protect our little group of shops,
including the center of our social fabric, found each morning at Duck's
Cottage. (Dia Dolce when in PA). Wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow. Stone by stone. I find myself wondering
what they think of this task. How tired they must be by the end of the day.
That I am even noticing this is a sign that
I'm in what Pema Chödrön calls "tender grief"—the moment when anger
burns itself out and what remains is softer and more vulnerable. A broken-open
place where we can see each other more clearly.
Maybe you are feeling it too. The late Gee
Gee Rosell says in this week's podcast that we are all grieving the death of
the world we once knew.
This kind of grief is where the puzzle of our lives can be dismantled and redone. Somewhere along the way, we forced pieces to fit. We
built edges around assumptions. And now something isn't working. Some
willingness to sit in the unfinished middle is required. We need to stop
forcing the fit.
Tuesday's total lunar eclipse in Virgo
brought with it the symbolism of endings and release—asking us to finally let
go of what we've been forcing. A moment of purification, an invitation to clear
space and come into deeper alignment.
It makes me wonder if we are all standing at
long tables, trying to make sense of a 1,000-piece world. Some still sorting
edges. Some stuck in the sandy middle. Some quietly hauling rocks. And
hopefully some young and enthusiastic souls bringing fresh eyes to the
task—fitting the pieces we set aside.
A new picture is forming.
The question is
whether we have the patience, love, and faith in each other to let it.
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