Rain Stopped Play is a commonly used phrase here in England where outdoor sporting events and other activities have to be delayed, postponed or cancelled due to rain.
When we were young we used to rhyme Rain, rain, go away, Come again another day.
It seems to me that the rain here in London these past weeks have not only not gone away, they returned day after day as an added trial to the grey January skies and miserable cold.
I am writing this on Blue Monday, loosely held to be the most depressing day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. In anticipation that any news might equal bad news, we have tried to go offline for a bit. To this end Mr Gochugaru and I surrounded ourselves with activities that took us away from thinking too much about the sad state of current world affairs, the weather and the economy. We have invited friends and family round for meals, made dumplings with my church small group, baked cakes for an outreach programme, supported friends singing in a local choir, visited the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, dined out a few times, did some window shopping at an indoor mall and even attended a concert by pipa player and composer Gao Hong.
Making dumplings is a good activity for a wet day as the sound of frying dumplings resemble the sound of falling rain
What we most enjoyed doing was making puzzles and watching old episodes of House. Not at the same time. Puzzles are done on a table and watching House is done on the sofa with a laptop nearby to turn to when the scenes get bloody. That’s when I type searches for any number of esoteric diseases and conditions that House’s team care to throw at the diagnosis. Google now thinks I am an über-hypochondriac.
People say ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. From what I have seen in this drama what doesn’t kill you a) may return to kill you later or b) kills someone else. But the main message I get from the show is that there is no running away from the fact that we all die in the end. Not a good thought for Blue Monday and that’s where making the puzzles have been so therapeutic.
I only hold a few questions when making a puzzle: what is the big picture, how do the small parts fit into the whole, what is the best strategy to complete this particular puzzle? I also had the thought that our lives are like one giant puzzle. Just as each puzzle is unique, each human is also unique. Just as all our puzzles required different approaches to be completed well, it is also wise to think through how best to approach our lives in order that we might (like the apostle Paul says at the end of his life) ‘fight the good fight, finish the race, keep the faith’.
Like life, every piece in a puzzle is important and leaving out many pieces would leave a gap, sometimes a big one
Making puzzles is a delightful way of travelling to different places. Below: Paris, New York and back in time to Jane Austen’s England
My preferred puzzle maker is Galison. I don’t intend to keep all the puzzles once finished, but to just keep the ones I had most fun making.
My books of the month:
Grains for Every Season by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg, published by Artisan, ISBN 978-1579659561 (a worthy tome on eating more whole grains)
Let It Go by Peter Walsh, published by Bantam Dell, ISBN 978-0593135891 (how to deal with your emotions if downsizing)
What is Wrong with the World? by Timothy Keller, published by Hodder and Stoughton, ISBN 978-1399829649 (the book gives ‘The Surprising, Hopeful Answer to the Question We Cannot Avoid’).