I am in an English class. Do not ask why - just laugh and move on. I will say I am happy about it only because the last class I was in was math....and, well, um..... yep! I'm glad I'm in english now. So, we had to write an "I Believe This" paper. Here is mine. My teacher suggested that I post it somewhere - on facebook - Yeah - NO! But I thought this might be a safe place to put it since I only have my fellow family members as followers. So, read, enjoy.
Rebecca DeWitt DeWitt 1
Sister Black
English 106
13 May 2015
Jigsaw Junkie
What makes people believe deeply in something? Is it the way parents raised us? Can it be a discovery of our own findings? Could a belief come to fruition from trials that cause us to see, understand, and then possess this conviction? I’m sure we find our own beliefs through many different avenues. My belief in the power of puzzles is totally parent-taught.
Call me a jigsaw puzzle-freak. Seriously, I cannot stop doing them, and I’m okay with this. I am addicted, and I don’t think I will, or even want, to deny myself this “fix.” To you outside of my world, with little knowledge of the draw of an addiction, I can only yell the words, “Yes, I am a puzzle freak!” This is my belief.
Growing up we always had a jigsaw puzzle set up in our home. It would usually take over our dining room table forcing us to use our wooden folding TV trays. Our TV trays were well worth the money we used to purchase them at our local FedMart (an equivalent to WalMart). My mother, the lover of puzzles, would regularly bring home new ones that contained the snow-capped mountain puzzles with a flowering field in the foreground. Or a cityscape, where lined-up brick houses had dogs in the grass and cars parked on the streets in front of their well-kept homes. There, on the table our puzzle would lie, teasing us with the sense that we could find just one more piece before bedtime – or better yet, to try and finish the blue house with the little white shutters. The different color shaped pieces, which lay outside of the completed square or rectangle edging, all beckoned us to; “Come, touch me, pick me up, and find my rightful home.” My father, the puzzle-avoider, usually found other things to do. For birthday gifts, I would ask for puzzles. As my age grew in years, so did my desire for larger, more difficult puzzles. On my 12th birthday, I was given 2 beautiful puzzles – one with a completely black cat with its green eyes staring straight at me and just a few of the whiskers reflecting the camera flash. The second, was just the opposite - a snow-white cat with blue eyes; no whiskers detected, but its pink nose a standout from the fluffy cotton ball of a cat. Difficult was a mild adjective for these two puzzles. I worked on them for weeks.
Each individual piece of a puzzle is so peculiar. Each must find where it fits in ‘its’ complex world. The ‘innies’ and ‘outies’ of their individual shapes, and the different colors, all yell at me and give me clues, each trying to tell me where it is to be placed in the arena of the confining barrier of the edges.
I’ve learned over the years that our brains use both sides in solving puzzles; the right side – for creativity and intuitiveness, and the left side for logic and sequence. Crossword puzzles are included too! Participating in puzzles of all kinds not only sharpens our memory but makes us more alert and increases our concentration among other benefits. As a bonus, doing mind games can help slow the onset of Alzheimer’s.
So my belief is this, puzzles are a necessity of life. They are an escape of the daily grind. The mundane things that I have to do every day seem to lose their distaste because I know I have my “fix” coming. My puzzles need me, and I need them.
