Sarah Lolley
  • Mailbox Missions
  • NDG Walks
  • What's New
  • Intro to Cryptic Crosswords
  • CBC/QWF Writer-in-Residence
  • Contact Me
  • Puzzle Tutorial
  • Practice Puzzles

Deliberate, Three Ways.

7/11/2020

0 Comments

 
This little gem from Fraser Simpson gave me pause a few weeks back:

     Considered deprived of freedom? (11)

The lockdown was brutally difficult in my household. With two little kids home from school and daycare, and two full-time jobs that still needed to get done, plus all the usual grind of groceries and cooking and cleaning and laundry, and all the added fear of a poorly-understood yet highly contagious virus, the lockdown, that period of de-liberation, was anything but a period of ample time for thought in our household. 

In fact, that wonderful Fraser Simpson clue above was part of a massive, 24x24, all-lights cryptic crosswords puzzle — something I’d heard of but never seen. But instead of a thrill of excitement on discovering the grid, I felt the bitterness of knowing I would not have the opportunity to do it. When I heard George Saunders advise his creative writing students to journal, I nearly cried. It was all I could do to meet my work deadlines and keep my kids safe and semi-entertained. Deliberation was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
Picture
Picture
​And yet, the more the pressures of the lockdown squeezed me, the more something creative and thoughtful within me fought back. No matter how busy I was, my mind lapsed into periods of reflecting and imagining and planning.
I got back to blogging after a long hiatus, as you see. I took the plunge into teaching cryptic crosswords through Zoom, which I absolutely adore. I created neighbourhood-specific interactive adventure games and a form of “Escape Room in a box”, which I’ll write about in my next entry.

But all of this was hard-won. It required intention. I had to snatch minutes wherever I could (often during middle-of-the-night insomnia) and fight against the pull of despair that the news and circumstances inspired. 
Picture
When my children tantrumed, fed up with the confinement and isolation and fear, I had to dig deep (very deep) for emotional resolve.

​
But then again, so did everyone. No matter our circumstances, no matter how relatively easy it was or how rough, we all had to become very deliberate in our actions, from the medically necessary (washing hands and not touching our faces) to the aspirational (exercising more, following through on learning new skills).

I came across this article from the BBC a few weeks ago about people who have received surprising messages of apology from their exes (and another one published yesterday). When I first read it, all I saw was the de-liberation of confinement and the deliberation it provoked. But these thoughtful individuals were also deliberate: they didn’t just think about how they had treated their exes poorly, they deliberately got in touch and apologized.

I’m still working out how I can do “deliberate” three ways in a clue, bringing in the intentionality that Fraser Simpson’s clue didn’t have. Here’s my best attempt so far:

         Think “lock up?” on purpose (10)

But I’m sure you can do better. How would you clue all three definitions of “deliberate”?
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    About Sarah

    I'm a writer, adventurer, amateur setter of cryptic crosswords, lover of "ah-ha!" moments, and exhausted mom.

    Archives

    November 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2019
    May 2018
    April 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    Accents
    Acrostics
    Amazement
    Bob Dylan
    Books
    Brain
    Certainty
    Choose Your Own Adventure
    Chris Hadfield
    Christmas
    Coincidence
    Creativity
    Cryptic Crossword Tutorial
    Editing Puzzles
    ELLE Magazine
    Epiphany
    Escape Room
    Family
    Finding Your Way
    Fraser Simpson
    Globe And Mail
    Group Solving
    Hero
    Hidden Messages
    Homophone Clues
    Horcrux
    Leonard Cohen
    Love
    Making Mistakes
    Maps
    Marriage
    Memory
    #MeToo
    Momentum
    Montreal Review Of Books
    Motherhood
    Music
    Mystery
    Nabokov
    Natural Phenomena
    Oliver Sacks
    Personal Essay
    Personalized Cryptics
    Politics
    Puzzles In Print
    Renovation
    Secrets
    Setting Puzzles
    The Committee Of Sleep
    The Coriolis Effect
    Travel
    Wes Anderson
    Wordplay
    Writer-in-Residence
    Writing
    Yoga

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.