Peace In Pieces

Like so many of you, during the heart of the COVID darkness, we got a little bit stir-crazy in our house. In truth, we are all kind of homebodies that only have a handful of people, places, or things we enjoy more than being home. Maybe it’s the dog or my new love of formless house dresses with pockets, but going out to dinner or to a movie was something we’d manage maybe once a month. Even still, when that’s not even an option, the rooms started to shrink and that’s when we decided to get a jigsaw puzzle.

I probably only bought it because it was of a Charlie Harper print. I came across one of the posters he did for the National Parks service at a thrift store when I was in college and nothing lived on my walls that was more than $10. The way he could take the infinite details, textures, and colors of nature and smooth it into clean lines and simple shapes, lit up my brain like nothing since high school geometry. The focal point was on a ram with great curving horns with various flora and fauna tangled around in an oval, framed by seemingly identical black pieces to fill out the rectangle shape of the puzzle.

We brought up the ancient card table from the basement and quickly found we needed a standing table- and yes, there was one of those in the basement, too. We snatched table lamps from spots they had sat for years and created webs of extension cords to give the pieces the best lighting for sorting and plucking. Sometimes we’d turn on an audio book while we searched for the tip of a leaf or the pattern of a feather and lose hours hunting, yearning for the satisfying “click” of putting the right piece in its place. Taming the chaos of hundreds of pieces of a puzzle gave us a small amount of control in a time when we had so little. The satisfaction of running my fingertips over a square inch space of beauty that I recreated making up for all the things my fingers could not magically re-connect.

All went well with the puzzle until we had completed the main picture leaving a lacey edge of unfinished black pieces. There was at least a hundred pieces that all looked the same and my attempts to make it “click” were met with frustration. We packed up the puzzle, put the table in the basement and unwove the web of cords. I couldn’t find what I needed, so I gave up.

Recently, I noticed customers in wellness having a similar response when I ask them, “are you finding what you need today?” They shyly smile and say, “I’m not really sure what I need.” The first time I heard this, it plucked a heart string deep inside as my mind loudly proclaimed “SAME!” It was like the puzzle all over again. I knew I needed a piece, but I didn’t have enough information to find it. Yes, we are all still pretty stressed with trying to find the piece that is going to click and complete the scene so it makes sense. We all so desperately need to rest and breathe a sigh of relief, check SOMETHING off the list and move on. 

It felt kind of reassuring that others were as lost as I was—and then I had some moments of worry—like “nobody knows what’s happening!” But then I settled on this pleasant thought about how special it is that people were coming to my work to find that piece. I would never wander a grocery store and leave feeling more at peace. But coming here, as a worker or a shopper does make me feel like something settles inside. We are all so complex and confusing, even to ourselves. I don’t know what you need, but I do know what everyone needs. 

Poor sleep is fastest way to make everything else more difficult. It’s not always the first item off of the shelf that fixes it, but we have been getting great feedback from CVScience’s new sleep gummies. They contain 10 mg of hemp-based CBD along with 3 mg melatonin and some magnolia bark and lemon balm. If CBD isn’t your thing, Natural Factor’s offers Tranquil Sleep in chewable tablets or soft gels with 200 mg of L-Theanine, 30 mg of 5-HTP, and 3 mg of melatonin.

Also, your feet need some love. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—Moon Valley’s lotion bars should live in several spots in your home. It looks like a bar of soap, but it’s actually a very dense beeswax and herb-infused puck that helps all dry body parts.  If your feet ache at the end of the day, Moon Valley also makes a peppermint foot rub that also has “good slip” for massaging. Grace Harbor’s MSM Goat Milk Lotion is also a great choice for your feet. Or for someone else’s feet.

This reminds me of a story and since it’s in my top five Co-op stories, I bet I have shared it before.  It’s worth repeating. When I first started working in Wellness, I often asked my customers what they liked about a product or how they used it so I could expand my product knowledge. So, when a very sweet grandma came in (probably wearing a formless house dress with pockets) to buy the above-mentioned Grace Harbor lotion, I asked her about it. She told me that she buys it for her husband’s hands, but he didn’t know that. He was a retired farmer, and his hands hurt from decades of working them. She explained that he wasn’t the type of man to put lotion on his hands, no matter how much pain he was in. She also had significant pain in her feet from decades of being on them. Her solution to that puzzle was simply beautiful: she would ask her husband to rub her feet each night with the MSM lotion so that he would get the lotion on his painful hands.  “Click”—they both found relief and connection.

Over the years, I’ve seen lots of moments when folks find what clicks for them and sometimes it starts with not knowing what you need, and just showing up anyway. We have to welcome the puzzle before we can solve it. I know it’s not always easy and some of us don’t have a basement full of tables to switch out until we find the one that doesn’t hurt our back while we hunt for that last corner piece. Sometimes we just make do, until we can do a little better. And sometimes I do get tired from the searching and solving, but I’ll never get tired of being able to work at a place that helps you find a little bit of your peace. May 2022 be a bit easier and a bit brighter and cheers to the clicks you can claim as your own.