It was 1996 and I lived in Central Kentucky. I lived in a little one-light town named
Pleasureville, and by God it sure was.
People were generally nice and considerate, but then again I was an 8
year old and nobody paid attention to 8 year olds unless they were being loud
or breaking things. Luckily, I was
neither and so nobody paid me much mind.
I quickly evolved into a silent and pensive girl, one who
turned to books and puzzles for hours a day.
My personal record was putting together a 1500 piece puzzle by myself in
about a week. Cardboard soot covered my
fingers as I carefully studied each shape, sorting out the corners, arguably
the easiest and hardest part simultaneously, because they were unique and easy
to spot, but there were only 4 a midst thousands, and therefore harder to
find. Once I found them, I moved to the
next logical step, the edge pieces.
These were the most important ones, as they not only gave the puzzle
structure and natural limitation, but provided a further hint to where in inner
pieces were to go. Then, depending on
the kind of puzzle, I would either sort them by shape, stacking them as high as
they would go against the wall, or I would sort them by color.
It was all a matter of elimination by then. I had made a methodological approach to
jigsaw puzzles. When they were finally
finished, I would either glue the puzzle together and keep it under my bed, or
I would fold the completed puzzle in half and stuff it back in its box. My favorite kinds of puzzles were the fresh,
stiff kind. They stayed in place even
after I folded them twice over. Of course, once a puzzle has been solved, I
didn’t see much use to it otherwise, and so I requested more. I would get them for my birthday and for
Christmas. I quickly became bored of the
usual jigsaws, and wanted something more challenging. When I was 10, I got a 3D puzzle of the Empire
State Building, measuring at just under a meter tall. When I was 10 and a half, I was given a
puzzle where all the inner pieces were the same exact shape and I had to truly
pay attention to the pattern printed on the pieces. And at 11, I was given another 3D puzzle, but
this one was a globe that had to be carefully built from bottom to top, or else
the structure would collapse. And
finally at 12, I was gifted a puzzle that not only had identical pieces, but
there were no edge or corner pieces.
Each piece was also double-sided, so there was no blank cardboard to
help me look at the cut of the cardboard.
On the box, this puzzle boasted “The most difficult jigsaw in the world”.
You might want to think that took the challenge. I can assure you that I truly wanted to. I wanted to defeat that final puzzle and be
crowned Queen of the Jigsaws and Ultimate Puzzle Solver Extraordinaire. Nothing could ever stump me after I achieved
those titles and then everything was downhill from there. Other kids would know of my supreme skills
and call me the smartest kid in the world.
I saw myself moving upwards. I
dreamed of untangling all those plastic Slinkys up in the attic and sharing them
with my classmates at recess. I wanted
to do a speed challenge of every 15 block sliding puzzle I found. But of course, those were baby toys compared
to the famed legend of the Rubik’s Cube.
I searched at yard sales whenever I had the chance, but I never came
across them. My pre-teen self was
convinced that they were highly rare and collectible, as well as ‘old’ and
therefore not sold in stores anymore.
I kept up with the puzzles for a few more months, satisfied
that I could still find a bit more fun in the ones I already owned, barring that
none of them had missing pieces. For that time, the elusive Rubik’s Cube would
remain a distant goal. Soon, I was
introduced—no, rather I was indoctrinated—into a life of technology. The World Wide Web, where I would play on
Java Applets and put together puzzles of any jpeg image I could upload. My Gameboy Original and Color, which held so
much more than Puzzle games like Tetris, as well as my Super Nintendo given to
me by my uncle, where I played Tetris Attack with my sister for hours, or until
one of us got frustrated and ran upstairs.
Finally, in Christmas of 2001, my sister and I got a Playstation 2 as a
gift and from there… the rest is history.
I still have many of my puzzles from my childhood and early
teens, including a few that I bought myself while I was overseas. They remain a relic of my past, never needing
to be recharged nor having batteries replaced.
They aren't affected by time and don’t take a terrible amount of
skill. It’s a sort of lost art, and
sadly one that even I have put away for years.
The boxes sit in my closet, neatly stacked by box length, waiting for
the day when I decide that I’m utterly exhausted by technology and want to pour
the pieces out on the table, prop up the box art for reference, and spend an
evening transforming a jumbled mess into a work of art.
A little confession to wrap up: I have a Rubik’s Cube and have never
legitimately solved it. I think if I had
had one as a kid, I would have done it for real. Maybe then it would have meant
something. But perhaps it was just never
meant to be. I can just hang on to the
one I have and hope that my own child can take advantage of that little cube
puzzle more than I ever did.
Anyway, until the next dawn!
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