We were supposed to go for breakfast in town this morning – just the two of us. A quiet breakfast together, and a wander around town while the new car charged up on one of the quick charging stations in the car-park near the river.
Knowing that I would need to be up and ready to leave the house not looking like a caveman, I fell out of bed early, had a shower, shave, got dressed, found some respectable clothes, and then fell down an internet rabbit hole while waiting for others to arise.
The internet rabbit hole obviously doesn’t respect normal space time expectations – I looked up and the morning was vanishing behind itself at a rate of knots. I wandered upstairs and nudged my other half awake.
“It’s almost 10 o’clock – are we not going into town?”
Half an hour later we were on our way – middle daughter in tow – all thoughts of quiet breakfasts gone – replaced by a grocery shopping list, and a visit to the weekend market that apparently I “go on about all the time” (I mentioned once that I might like to visit it several months ago).
In-between being frog-marched between greengrocers and supermarkets, I escaped to a book-shop for a few moments, and happened upon perhaps the best book I’ve found in quite some time. The beginning of the synopsis reads as follows:
“In a mysterious town hidden in our collective subconscious, there’s a department store that sells dreams.”
After being found by my family, and being handed bags to carry, I left without the book. Ten minutes later we returned past the book-shop entrance and I announced “I’m going to go and buy that book”. It’s sitting on the desk in front of me now.
With a few minutes to kill we decided to visit the new pub that opened it’s doors a few days previously – a chain pub – owned by perhaps the most successful pub chain in the country.
It’s worth noting the nature of the town I live in. It’s filled with quite wealthy families, and is headed directly towards the event horizon that most towns that do too well arrive at; a high-street filled with galleries, restaurants, clothes for ladies and gentlemen of a certain age, and overpriced fitness clothing for people that want others to think they work out.
When the news spread that this particular pub would be arriving, there were more than a few murmurs of it signalling the end of all things – predictions of drunks, drugs, vandelism, and whatever else they might think up with no evidence what-so-ever.
Their attitude reminded me of the arrival of a chain of discount stores in the town where my in-laws live a few years ago. There were murmurs that nobody would shop there – that they only stock rubbish – that nobody would be seen dead there. Of course it immediately became the busiest shop in the street.
The same thing has happened here.
The pub is enormous. I read up on it, while waiting for our rapidly delivered drinks. It is open from 8am, and closes at midnight or beyond, seven days a week. It has sixty staff. It has instantly undercut everywhere else for food and drink – serving unlimited refills of tea and coffee, and all manner of breakfast options.
It was full of families. Filled to the rafters. A small army of staff quickly and quietly moved through the hubbub – delivering food, picking up, tidying up, cleaning, and helping customers at ever turn.
A while later – while wandering back to the car – I looked in on the formerly popular pubs and restaurants around town. They were almost all empty.
Yes, the food and drink at the new pub is basic. But sometimes that’s all you really want, or can warrant. Sometimes you don’t want restaurant quality food. Sometimes you just want something quick, basic, filling, and warming before heading off to wherever you’re going, or whatever you’re doing. That seems to be their entire modus operandi.
Anyway.
You’re probably wondering where jigsaw pieces come into this.
While wandering around town behind my other half and middle daughter – carrying shopping bags – my mind wandered off elsewhere. It travels enormous distances sometimes, and it’s difficult to figure out how it ends up where it does – but it does.
I started thinking about a science teacher I once had – who described our body’s natural defences being able to defeat viruses by building arrow-heads that perfectly fit the arrows used in their attacks – and remembering them afterwards, should the same virus happen by in the future.
And then I thought about friendships – relationships – and wondered if they’re the same way.
If you imagine your relationship with somebody a bit like a jigsaw, I wondered if – while you’re together – if you’re kind of like a complete jigsaw – two parts of an unlikely whole. And if you don’t see each other for some time, if somehow your body still has your half of the jigsaw – and they still have their half – and when you do cross paths again, there’s a pleasant surprise when you find you still fit together so well.
There’s also the satisfaction of finding yourself part of something larger – something somehow more complete than just you – and the wonder that somehow in this chaotic world you found somebody who’s puzzle pieces so perfectly fit yours.
And you remember. You might not realise you remember until you cross paths again, but you do.
So yes – all of that tumbled through my head while wandering along behind – carrying the shopping bags – not saying much.