Jigsaw puzzles are

curious things. 

There is usually a puzzle "on the go" in the local library.  It will be on the high table between the fiction and the non-fiction. People will walk past, stop, look - and then perhaps add something to the slowly growing picture. 

It always seems to be the border which is done first. The "straight edges" are apparently the easiest to do. I have never seen one of the "round" or "irregular" puzzles on the table. Apparently some of the more unusual puzzles are even more puzzling.

Most of the library puzzles are landscapes. The patches of sky or sea seem to take longer to do too. I observe all this as I pass. I have not yet stopped with the idea of attempting to contribute.

Recently the library has been filled with school students wanting a quiet place to study for their final exams. A jigsaw puzzle had been finished and no staff member had put out another one for people to work on. "The students might find it distracting," one of them told me.

"I think I'd put one out," I told her. She looked at me and was about to disagree when I said, "Let me tell you something. It wasn't a jigsaw puzzle but it was the same sort of thing."

And I explained to her how, when I was in law school, I knitted a very complex "aran" pullover. Every round (I was knitting it in the round of course) I did required concentration. I used the knitting to help me solve problems and to give my conscious mind a break from what I was working on. Sometimes I would be doing practice questions and I would think, "I don't know the answer to this!" At that point I would stop and think, "I must know the answer." I would knit a round and concentrate on an entirely different sort of language for a few minutes. Then I would go back to the problem. If I was still having trouble I would put it to one side and discuss it with my friend C.... over our lunchtime sandwich but that was rarely necessary.  It was a strategy which worked for me. My friend C... would do crossword puzzles. I know there were a number of other students who also "distracted" themselves in the same way.

It requires a certain amount of self-discipline. It has to be just one move of the chess game or one piece of the puzzle done. It is not the same as going for that essential physical exercise. This is a different exercise for the mind.

A puzzle box appeared on the table. It was left there unopened but inviting. I was back in the library a couple of days later and I saw a student push back the chair he was sitting on. He wandered over to the puzzle, stared at it for a few minutes. Then he reached out, put one piece in place and then another. He stared at it for a moment longer and then went back to where he was sitting and returned to his work. 

Disciplined distraction can be a very useful tool in the study box.