Winter: The season for reflection

Greetings for the New Year!! St. Louis has been very cold this month and I have been hibernating. Actually, I have been obsessed with a 1,000 piece puzzle of Klimt's "The Kiss."

As I worked on the puzzle, I realized that working through the puzzle was a metaphor for living. I have in mind a picture of what I expect from life---a picture of the outcome. I want my life to be beautiful like Klimt's painting filled with gardens, love, relationships, harmonious, rhythmic patterns, and perfect edges. I loved my basic design art class that is where learned one can create a universe of beauty within seeming rigid  parameters and boundaries.  

I set a plan. I separated the background pieces from the garden; his clothing from her clothing; his skin from her skin. I set the edges and then worked in from edge pieces. I especially liked the boundary pieces that have the colors of two sections. Sometimes I focused on color patterns, sometimes on puzzle piece shapes, sometimes on the big picture content, and sometimes I talked to the puzzle pieces. I would ask the puzzle pieces, "Where are your friends? Where do you belong?" 

Sometimes when nothing in the puzzle seemed to fit together, I would work outside the puzzle. I would find a pair of pieces that fit together nicely and I would build on them outside the boundaries of the puzzle. Then I would take this pattern and place it inside the puzzle boundaries and move it around until the perfect placement presented itself.

When everything was correctly placed, the puzzle had a beautiful seamless quality. It was rhythmic with harmonious colors and no ruff edges. If I was forcing the shapes together the picture edges would loosen threatening the beauty of the picture. I feel sad for the pieces I ripped---but there are only three that look really worn and tired.

The process was not perfect. I had several false starts. I had to redo sections of the edges on three sides as what seemed to be perfect decisions were actually misplaced pieces. When I tried to incorporate the pattern section I completed outside the puzzle into the puzzle, it seemed not to fit. I was really frustrated as the pattern section had internal integrity and the puzzle was 80% complete with beauty and symmetry.

I asked myself, what is my best tactic for dealing with problems that seem intractable? Flexibility of thinking works---change my point of view, turn my choice---90 degrees, 180, 270, 360. My last puzzle pieces I struggled with for days. At last I realized they did not belong to the right side of the puzzle but belonged to the six isolated pieces missing from the left side of the puzzle. Like life, I didn't understand these outlier pieces until I stepped back and accepted the reality. The picture is only complete when I incorporate the outliers in the open spaces. They slipped in quietly, comfortably. They blend in perfectly. One piece looks like a little man with shovel feet and the other piece looks like a house with handles on the sides.

I remember that my guidance once told me every season has a focus and winter time is a time for reflection. After honest reflection, one knows what seeds to plant in the spring. This winter seems endless. My puzzle gave me a focus for reflection and I reclaimed my excitement and anticipation. The kiss of Spring will be glorious and brings with it great potential. Now I have thoughts on the seeds I hope to plant.