Jigsaw Packing Skills

Our youngest son, recently graduated English major, has a job starting next week. So now we're packing up his life into the back of a car, and some obscure impulse led me to see if all his boxes would fit into the trunk. It's a two-day drive to his new "home" and I wanted to minimize how much stuff would be visible in the car.

There's a computer, of course, monitor, speakers, printer, boxes of books (English major), guitar amp (musician too), numerous guitar pedals, new comforter and sheets (mother's son, I couldn't let him leave home without them), more books, etc... And the amazing thing is, everything fit, perfectly, just like a jigsaw with its pieces falling into place.

All these years we've packed him and his brothers up for college. All these years we've struggled with those odd-shaped inaccessible empty spaces. And this year, the last time we ever have to do it, we finally get it right. Kind of ironic really, just as my life starts feeling like a jigsaw with a piece that's suddenly gone missing...

Still, there's the eBook to cheer me up. That was certainly a surprise and very welcome extra piece to my jigsaw life. And the departing son, being an English major, actually sounds a little bit proud of me. So here, in honor of jigsaw boxes fitted tidily in the trunk, is a somewhat more boxlike version of my jigsaw book cover. (Can you tell I like jigsaws...?) And there, somewhere far far from here, will be my son soon setting up his own new jigsaw life.



Refracted: the story of a man who gets lost in time and can't remember what he's looking for. Preview Refracted here.