Puzzling Words

These synchronistic moments happen to us all more frequently than we remember, but when we begin to take note,  it does seem messages are intended for  and sent directly to us. Messages with meaning, those far more significant than  we at first are prepared to grant concern. Coming together has been a reluctant act for some, some like me. Perhaps I might move over next time help arrives, rather than moving speedily away.

“Haven’t you got that done yet?” 

I asked his pardon because I didn’t recognize his voice or his face, which was close to mine as he bent down to scan the crossword I was struggling with but almost complete.

“Aren’t you finished with that?”

As he said this he proceeded to look more closely at the clues. He was perhaps forty, well dressed in the country club way, and then uninvited, to my horror, he commenced to sit down close to me, as close as cuddly friends would if we were. “Is anything wrong?” he asked as I picked up my coffee, tucked the crossword under my arm, and asked him if there was anything wrong with him.  

I didn’t see him after that, and was glad I didn’t have to offer him the paper with the puzzle not quite complete, the remaining six or seven words staying just out of my memory’s reach. I was ashamed of my affront and walking away,  leaving him sitting in the foyer alone without friendship and a puzzle to share.

Did he work for Nissan? Was he as I was a customer waiting for his car to be serviced? Did I know him and had forgotten? He was well enough dressed with his khaki trousers and pale blue golf shirt. It was something I might have worn when I was his age, might wear now if I bothered to buy them, to search them out. He didn’t say a word when I moved to the other end of the showroom foyer. I expected him to call after me, that, no, there was nothing wrong, he was just being friendly. Something like that.

How close he sat was what drove me away. Uninvited, he barged into my peaceful space without the least bit of “Would you mind?” Yes, it was this more than his upper middle class image and body. It was the  fact that he was intruding as though he knew me. Perhaps he did, and I’d forgotten. If he did, why not remind me as I prepared to leave? Oh well, another broken acquaintance, another contact yanked apart. Perhaps word will get around the country club, my brother will hear of it and pass the incident along, scrubbed of its indignant phrasing I might deserve.

The man who stood then sat next to me while I doing Wednesday’s crossword in the B.E. did seem to come out of the blue; in fact, he was wearing a blue golf shirt which I may have mentioned. That I didn’t see him later pleased me, rather relieved me. I wouldn’t have to yield the unfinished puzzle and admit my clumsiness and ignorance. This was likely why I all but ran from his propinquity which arrived almost out of nowhere then returned to it as I departed. That in itself was strange in a minimal, curious way. That he didn’t call after me to come back, offer identification, added to my curiosity, and then his disappearance there-after.

He didn’t disappear from my mind though, for the incident annoyed me that I rejected his offer of company, his taking it without at least a greeting, but more so that I rejected his offer to help solve the puzzle. So what that I didn’t know him? Why did I feel repulsed by his entrance into my life, put off sufficiently to hurray away from where I’d been comfortable and content to solve the crossword alone? All of this made an interesting entry in my journal that night, and I all but forgot the piece of littler I’d picked up downtown, from the sidewalk in front of where I have my morning coffee, yesterday, the day I’d met another wordsmith at Nissan’s front foyer door.

I didn’t look at what I’d picked up other than notice it was another crossword not unlike the one I’d been working on earlier that day, maybe three or four hours before. I folded it neatly and put it in my pocket for diversion later that evening. It slipped my mind until today, Thursday, when I was looking for my pen and found it there folded as I left it. So I put it on the kitchen table for later that evening. Then I did this and then that, ate, went to the garden to see whether the cat was disturbing the robins again, pulled a few weeds, and then returned, unfolded the puzzle I’d retrieved from the sidewalk downtown. This one was in the Toronto S., same day as the one I’d found at Nissan. And it was the same puzzle I then couldn’t completely solve, had left at the dealership, had kept from the man who wanted to help.

Why was this happening? Does it signal my helper would enter my life again? That I’d have another chance? These and other thoughts glided through my mind as I quickly filled in what I remembered from yesterday’s work, and then I started to complete those squares I didn’t fill. They came easily, all excpet one, whose clue was “come together”. Three letters representing what I’d abandoned yesterday morning in the foyer among those shiny cars waiting for sale.

It didn’t surprise me that I didn’t get this last answer, that I still can’t think of a word with three letters that represents what the maker of the puzzle planned. It appeared it must be a verb, an action I avoided as often as I could, pointing to my aloofness, what some have referred to as my ability to remain invisible. The four pages, one sheet, I’d picked up was dirty, had been walked on, ridden over, yet there it was when I walked back to my car in my way, a second piece after a first piece of litter I’d ignored. It wasn’t to be left. I stopped and picked it up. That it was a crossword would be reason to save it. That it was one I’d almost completed the day before, that the clue I’d missed was “come together”, these seemed to indicate a message might be had. Would my would be friend and I meet again? Might I become slightly more visible and less aloof? Might a coming together become visible proof?

July 11, 2009

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *