The piece that fell on the floor

Do you like jigsaw puzzles? I love them. I think they have always given me the sense that randomness is only an appearance of things and that order is underlying ... and that persistent effort can help me find the underlying order. The picture I'm putting together has to be worth it ... and I do want to know ahead of time what it will look like when I'm done. I like to do them with company - or alone - in passing - or (much more likely) in long, intensely focused, "what time is it?" sessions.

Going back to school has had a lot in common with doing a jigsaw puzzle. The picture at the end - somehow I simply assumed this - hm .. that's a thought for another day --- the picture at the end was meant to be a better, more complete Me. I decided to go back to school, now in my midlife, when I could easily have filled my life with versions of what I already happily have, so that I could find and connect the border pieces of my life. It felt like a lot had been filled in, but that I did not know the shape of it and I wanted to.

So I enrolled.

Q. Is there a way to get credit for what I've already done?
A. Yes, and no.

Q. What do you want to do? (Translation: What is it for? What will it produce?)
A1. Art Therapy.
A2. Human Studies.
A3. Human Studies, emphasizing Writing.
A4. Human Studies, tacking my little boat into Narrative Therapy's wind.

Narrative is transformative. Jesus told parables instead of giving didactic lists. There were no multiple-choice workbooks passed out to the listeners at the Sermon on the Mount on their way into the venue. The prophet Nathan told King David a story about a man who ate his neighbor's pet lamb ... and David knew what his dalliance with Bathsheba really meant. Aesop said the monkey got his hand stuck, and Plato talked about men watching shadow puppets. When we tell our stories, "the things that have rattled around in us like a pebble in a can," as our instructor said last weekend, when we finally dump the pebble out onto the table, the blasted thing finally stops injuring us. There is magic in the very act of getting it out of the hollow metallic shell and onto the table, where our breath and life can touch it. Tell your story, and your kryptonite becomes a vitamin.

Ever lose that last piece to your puzzle? Ever find it near a chair leg or under the bookselves? Me too. Last weekend in class.