Seven Simple Pieces
Tuesday, December 30th, 19977:26 PM, Tuesday evening. I have a smoothly constructed wooden box that holds two sets of tangrams — a Christmas present from my parents. The tangrams are seven wooden pieces cut into basic geometric shapes. What you do is look at a card that bears a blocky silhouette of some natural figure (animals, fish, birds, trees etc.) and then you try to re-create that image with your bits of wood. The game is surprisingly difficult. It’s amazing how many shapes you can create with just seven simple pieces.
The first real snowfall of the year drifted down from the sky here last night. Behind the house, the woods are white-laced and still — quiet beneath a softly glittering blanket that covers everything. The angularities of bare black branches, the dust gray of wintering lawns, all have been softened, subtly shifted into ghost pale after-images. I like it like this: familiar things renewed.
The ads in the newspapers and on TV are starting to prominently feature various exercise machines, health clubs, diets. Sales inspired by all those New Year’s resolutions, no doubt. A lot of people are shuffling their pieces around at this time of year, trying to improve old patterns, build nicer shapes.
As for me, I’ve been fiddling around with the tangrams. Let’s see, I’ve made a playful lion cub, the Maltese falcon, a running goose and, fittingly enough for this time of year, a phoenix. Like most people, I have a lot of things I want to change in the New Year. Better patterns, more healthy shapes. I hope that I can re-arrange my life in the ways I want — sometimes that can be quite difficult, though. It is a tough game.
It’s night, now — clear and utterly black. No more snow is falling, at least for the moment. Everything is quiet, cool, and frosted white. Familiar contours have been covered, re-shaped, made new to the eye.
Got seven simple pieces of wood, here.
I wonder what I can make of them?
— JWR, 12/30/97