I have a lot of memories of there being jigsaw puzzles in our home. My mother enjoyed working on the puzzles, and we often selected a new puzzle as a gift for her. In a household with a lot of children, it was an inexpensive way to entertain on rainy days. I would sometimes work on the puzzles, but it was never one of my favorite recreational activities. After I became an adult, my mother once told me that the puzzles were one activity that helped her to have conversations with my older sisters at times when relationships were strained as they navigated their teenage years. Somehow, the puzzle invited a slower pace, and people were more likely to listen to one another instead of raising their voices in argument.

There was a phase in my preteen years when I would occasionally take two or three pieces from the puzzle and hold them until the puzzle was completed and their absence was discovered. Then, as everyone was looking for the missing pieces on the floor, I’d slip in and complete the puzzle. That trick didn’t last very long. It wasn’t popular with family members who had done the work of solving the puzzle.

As an adult, I have not taken up jigsaw puzzles as a hobby. I worked on a few with our daughter when she was growing up, but when I think of recreational activities, jigsaw puzzles don’t come to mind. I think that the puzzles we once had have all been donated to rummage sales.

Occasionally, however, I will spend some time searching and putting a few pieces into a puzzle when we visit a friend or family member who has one out. Yesterday was one of those days. We are visiting my wife’s sister and her husband, and there is a puzzle in progress at their house. As we sat visiting in front of the puzzle, I found and fitted a few pieces. After dinner, I worked on the puzzle with my brother-in-law while Susan and her sister talked over a cup of tea.

Like many other things in life, we each have our ideas about how best to approach solving the puzzle. I like to look for particular shapes and patterns of color in individual pieces. I don’t invest much time looking at the picture on the box. I am more interested in the relationships of the pieces. My brother-in-law, in contrast, takes a picture of the box so that he can enlarge the image on his tablet computer to study the details and uses his familiarity with what the completed image will look like to find the pieces he is looking for. He is very goal-oriented. He seemed driven to complete the puzzle as soon as possible. He showed me a couple of other puzzles that he had recently completed and a couple more that he planned to complete when the current puzzle is finished. I’m pretty sure he will finish the one we were working on last night today. I don’t care whether or not the puzzle is completed. I don’t need to see all of the pieces in their proper places. I’m content to fit a few and forget about it.

Whether the puzzle is completed or not is not important to me. The point of the exercise was to have something to do with our hands while we conversed. My goal-oriented brother-in-law, however, seemed more interested in talking about the puzzle and where the pieces fit than in other topics. By the end of the evening, I was eager to forget about the puzzle. I don’t know how long he worked on it after I excused myself and went to bed. Perhaps it will be completed when we gather for breakfast this morning.

It seems highly unlikely that I will work on another puzzle soon. It isn’t that I dislike the activity, it is just that when I think of things to do when I have a little extra time, getting out a puzzle doesn’t come to my mind.

My choice of hobbies and activities changes frequently, however. A time may come when I am more interested in puzzles. I doubt, however, that I will ever adopt the techniques of my brother-in-law. I suspect that he will always be better at fitting the pieces than I am. I have no problem with that.

Thinking of how some people bring a bit of competitive spirit to solving puzzles, I checked online to discover that there are official associations that organize jigsaw puzzle-solving contests. There are US and International championship contests held every year. I doubt, however, that the competitions draw big audiences. At least the thought of watching someone else complete a puzzle, no matter how quickly, doesn’t seem to me to be exciting.

Then, again, my brother-in-law plays golf and enjoys watching golf tutorials on YouTube. I like my brother-in-law, but his recreational passions are a long way away from mine. Golf is another game that I doubt I’ll ever take up, and I know I have no desire to watch. I can think of dozens of books I’d like to read and essays I’d like to write in which I’d prefer to invest my time and energy over watching people play golf.

Part of the joy of visiting family and friends is discovering how we are different. If we had not married sisters, I doubt that my brother-in-law and I would have ever become friends. We are attracted to entirely different recreational activities. What we have in common is love for sisters. And that illustrates the differences between the sisters. They have chosen two very different partners. We are all happy, and it is evident that the right sister chose the right mate.

Today we’ll start a couple of days of longer-distance driving. I’ve always enjoyed road trips, and I’m looking forward to the drive. My brother-in-law commented that he doesn’t like to drive long distances. We’re different in that way, too. We aren’t exactly traveling light. Our car is packed with a variety of other things we enjoy. As far as I know, however, we haven’t packed any jigsaw puzzles. I don’t expect to need more time solving puzzles right now.