Shelter From Life’s Storms - The New York Times

But now, with crossword puzzles, there was an opportunity for us to work together. A way to make him proud of me that didn’t involve throwing a ball. Or bringing home a girl.

Dad was a voracious reader and an even bigger trivia nut than I was. He knew the names of old baseball players, classic movies, military history — the categories that are the bedrock of Times crosswords. He heartily agreed to help me.

So at least once a week and sometimes more often, I’d come to him with an incomplete puzzle. I’d toss him a clue, let him know how many letters it had and show him any squares I’d filled in. Working on the puzzle together also required us to be physically close. It was an intimacy that had once scared me. Now, all these years later, I miss it.

It went on that way for the next decade: I’d work on a puzzle for a day or two and then bring it to him to help me complete it, or at least get close. Even when I went off to college, he’d save puzzles for us to do on holidays and summer vacation.

After I graduated from college and moved to New York, though, my visits home to Baltimore were fewer and farther between. When I did get home, there just didn’t seem to be enough time to dig into a puzzle with him. By then, though, I had my own Times subscription and was doing them solo. Not to brag, but by then I was completing Sunday puzzles with some regularity.

I don’t believe that Dad ever really did crosswords on his own. It was always something we did together. Looking back, it was spending time with me that gave him joy, not the puzzles themselves. For me, I guess it was both.

When the app for the New York Times Crossword puzzle came out, my habit turned into something of an obsession. I’m a fidgety person and need something to occupy my brain or else I get antsy. Some people surf Instagram, others play Candy Crush. I fire up the crossword app.