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valuable things to do with my time. The house, pets, laundry, yard, computer callout for my attention. Yet day after day, I find a deck of cards in my hands and another array of solitaire appearing on the table before me. No other pastime has ever managed to grip me so resoundingly. What appeal does this game hold for me?
Well, as a single mom of a teenage son it probably does several good things. It's a great stress-reliever. It demands your complete attention and pushes worries out the backdoor of your mind. It gives you a chance to be in complete control of what's happening in front of you, a feeling which seldom visits the world of parents of teenagers. ~

The goal of the game, bringing order out of chaos, is another great
benefit to my peace of mind. Take a deck of cards in complete disarray and arrange it according to numbers and suits- neat, orderly, satisfying. Few things in life can be wrapped up so neatly in ten or fifteen minutes. Sometimes I find I need to play until I win and all is back in its right order- and therefore at some level all's well with the world. If all is going fairly well otherwise, a near win may be satisfying enough.
The game also supplies a nice analogy for the problem solving process in other venues of life. As you layout the cards, many small problems are obvious. By becoming more sophisticated in your strategy, you know which small problems to tackle first, how to avoid making the moves that will block progress further along, and when to "give up the queen," focusing on the moves that will add the greatest number of cards to the piles.
Every game offers a new variety of problems. With thousands of different array possibilities, each game offers a new scenario to be solved. Only practice seems to yield that deeper level of understanding. I now win considerably more than the one out of ten games the book predicts.

I've learned to trust the problem-solving wisdom of my unconscious mind. Sometimes after getting up to make a cup of tea, I'll sit down and immediately focus on exactly the right card to be moved. My subconscious mind makes decisions about moves that I don't even consciously process while putting the tea in the microwave. The choice of the ~ card to pull from below in a fan, that final all- important decision, also seems to be a subconscious decision born of internalized past experiences. As I become more comfortable with "going with my gut feelings" in this game, I relax a bit more about life, realizing that intuition can be akin to wisdom. Maybe our experiences do encourage an unconscious wisdom that serves us well.
Odd as it sounds, I think this game has enriched my life in at least as great a measure as it has consumed my time. I don't regret the time spent in calm concentration of the cards spread before me. If you try it and find yourself enraptured, I hope ~ Belle Lucie will be just as good a friend to you!

*The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games, Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith, Bantam Books, NY, 1966

Learn more about this author, Sandra Cole.
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