North winds are whipping, and the ground is frozen, so yardwork is out of the question right now—hooray! That gives me the excuse to dig out a jigsaw puzzle and get busy building a picture. Sometimes I glue the puzzle together when it’s done, frame it, and hang it on the wall. But most of the time, I take a photo of the completed puzzle, pull it apart, and save it in the box to do over and over again. I have loved the challenge of a jigsaw puzzle ever since I was a youngster.

When I moved to the Roanoke Valley, I made a friend named Russ who enjoyed jigsaw puzzling as much as I did. The first time he came to visit me and found puzzle pieces spread across my dining room table, he jumped right in to get each piece in its place. We became true puzzle buddies.

He lived down the street from me so it was convenient for him to bring a new puzzle to my place so we could spend the evening bent over the table, sorting pieces and searching for a home for each one of them. We agreed that a good jigsaw shouldn’t be totally impossible to put together, but it should have at least one thousand pieces and be challenging. While we puzzled, we would talk and solve all of the problems of the world. He would leave in the wee hours of the morning when the last piece completed our work of art.

Our time together reminded me of Molly, a gracious lady I used to visit in a small town in Oklahoma when I lived in Oklahoma City. She loved working jigsaw puzzles more than I did.

Puzzles and Pie 
by Dee Bowlin 

More often than not, 
she’s at the kitchen table
when I come to the back door. 
With hot coffee at her elbow, 
she sifts through worn 
jigsaw puzzle shapes,  
a maze of greens and blues. 
I kiss her cheek; her eyes smile. 
Without a word, she knows I came 
to sort the seven shades of sky. 

I pour my coffee to join her 
when the aroma of nutmeg makes 
me peek into the oven—ah, custard pie.  
Good reason to stay a while.
Settling down across the table, 
I study the upside-down picture 
as we wait for the oven timer to ring,
and she tells me all the town secrets. 

Table-talk moves much faster 
than finding puzzle pieces that fit, 
and when the pie cools, we indulge, 
saying, “We need to rest our eyes.” 
Hours overdue, I head for home, 
never doubting that her jigsaw puzzle 
will be finished before dawn.