Late on Thursday afternoon, as you wrap up your work week, you hop on your e-bike and ride across the college grounds, past the stately old mansions on Stevens Lane that now serve as off-campus apartment buildings. College Avenue slopes gently downhill toward the river, its generous bike lanes running past cafes and restaurants with their facades open to the warm evening. Riding past your new favorite pizza place, you can smell the wood smoke from their brick oven. You grip your handlebars, coasting as gravity gently pulls you toward your destination, and you let the fresh air fill your lungs, taking a slow breath.
You are heading for ¡Jugamos!, a toy store on College Avenue near Meade, where the monthly business meeting of the Jubilee Station Puzzle Exchange is taking place this evening. This will be your first meeting as a new volunteer. You pull up to the bike rack in front of the shop and notice a narrow passageway along the side of the brick building, with a sign across it that says: “Grown Ups, Do Not Enter.” As you lock your bike, two kids approach the opening, giggling and glancing back over their shoulders at you, as they duck under the sign and disappear.
You heed the sign’s warning, and enter the shop through the front doors. The cashier waves hello to you while checking out another customer. The shop space is somewhat narrow but deep, with a large display of stuffed animals up front guarding shelves of books and toys behind. Toward the back of the store, you see racks and racks of jigsaw puzzles, all bearing the same stickers you saw in the lounge at the guesthouse last weekend.
You reach the back door to the shop, which opens into a courtyard formed by the brick walls of the surrounding buildings. There is a small playground at the center, with a grouping of picnic tables in one corner, and party lights strung overhead. Roughly a dozen adults are seated at the tables, some of them wearing Puzzle Exchange volunteer shirts from previous events. Two women, both holding clipboards, are standing in front of the tables.
“Hello!” the two women say in unison. “Are you here for the Puzzle Exchange!”
You say, “Yes, I am!”
“Wonderful,” one of them replies. “I’m Jessica, and actually, this is also Jessica. Please, have a seat. We’ll get started in another minute.”
You sit down in an open spot, exchange greetings with everyone at the table, and see that a puzzle mat has been laid out, with a 500-piece puzzle in the midst of being assembled. You dive into working on the puzzle, happy to work with your hands after spending a long day at the office. As the kids hoot and holler on the playground, and your fellow volunteers attack the puzzle laid out in front of you, you listen to the rhythmic sifting of the pieces in the box, and breathe deeply.
The meeting gets underway with the two Jessicas ticking through the details of the Puzzle Exchange. They tell you, “We have over 1,000 puzzles in our collection right now. Our busiest times are winter and summer – people take puzzles with them on vacation. We manage the puzzle collections for all the local schools, care facilities, and regional rehab centers. We also participate in a regional sharing network with other towns, to keep everyone’s collections fresh.”
Dinner arrives soon after, as the meeting settles into a steady flow of committee reports and small scale financial decisions. Each table gets a collection of family style platters of curry and rice from Bollywood Hills, the South Asian restaurant down the street. You help yourself to a bowl of veggie korma, the rich creamy sauce perfect for mopping up with a piece of garlic naan.
While everyone is serving themselves food, the first Jessica comes and sits on the very end of the bench next to you. She says, “Does this all make sense so far?”
You say, “Absolutely. It’s really impressive.”
Jessica says, “Thanks! A lot of people who came before us made all of this possible. And now it’s our turn. Speaking of which… we could use some help at the elder care center, if you’re up for that. You would go over maybe twice a month to bring some new puzzles and collect the old ones. It’s a fun gig, because they also have a preschool there. So you get to work with puzzles for adults and kids. What do you think – would that work for you?”
You say, “Yes, I’d be happy to do that.”
She says, “Awesome, thank you!”, making a note on her clipboard. “Let’s meet again next weekend just to go over details. How about Saturday afternoon at the union hall?”
You say, “Yes, that sounds good! See you then.”
As the business meeting wraps up, you visit the other picnic tables, working a little bit on each of the puzzles, which are coming together rapidly at the hands of so many experienced assemblers. The kids from the playground mingle with the crowd as well, inspecting the adults’ work. You are starting to recognize some familiar faces from your neighborhood, and they light up with evident joy when they recognize you as well.
Night falls over the town, and the playground in the courtyard falls quiet as the kids slip back down the secret passageway, heading home for baths and bedtime stories. When you are ready to go, you ignore the signs warning off adults, and sneak into the dark and narrow alley yourself. You press your hands against the cool brick on either side of you, and you take a contented breath.
The lights of College Avenue seem impossibly far away in the darkness. But your eyes begin to adjust, and you realize that the walls of the alley are lined with hundreds of glow in the dark stars, forming constellations that stretch out ahead of you, guiding you home.