I remember the sound of ducks greeting me in the pre-dawn hours as the boat bobbed on the water. A decade ago, my folks and I navigated along the Canal du Midi in southern France for a week. We moored at the edge of 1000-year-old villages and wandered, stocking up on crusty bread and fresh vegetables from the markets. At night by candlelight, we read about the Visigoths and the Cathars as we armed ourselves on wine made from the grapes growing along the rolling countryside. One of our stops was the medieval city of Carcassonne. The fortified walls still stand, now protecting tchotchke shops plying their wares to curious tourists.
After this trip, a friend introduced me to the game of Carcassonne. One of a family of German, multi-player, multi-strategy games by Hans im Gluck, Carcassonne instantly appealed to me. I went out and bought it for my folks. When Tee and I began seeing each other, we played with my mother on the rare occasion when she could be enticed. The game became more intricate and our tactics more considered as the months went by. This is not a game that can be mastered, per se, because every play and every player changes the terrain. But it can become more fun.
Tee and I went a little nuts for Carcassonne. We bought and learned how to use every expansion set, and the game grew. Adjustments were necessary. Tee’s dad came to help us design and build a coffee table the right shape to play Carcassonne. Our tiles spilled out of the knit cap from which we drew; for Christmas, a friend sewed us a cute, fleece pouch for storing them. The small score-keeping board with its 50 point limit could not track our obsession, so I used a drill, a block of wood, and several colored matchsticks to advance the ranks of the various players.
This is no D&D sort of craze. Carcassonne and its ilk (Settlers of Cattan and Dominion, for example) appeal widely because they are as simple or as complex as the people around the table. Players build, trade, earn points. They can create alliances, or secretly amass land, or just enjoy the fun of small victories. The landscape is forever in flux. For a person who wants to put a gun to her head about halfway into a game of Scrabble, Carcassone is a refreshing change.
In every one of our camp homes, we introduced the game to our co-workers. Several bought it for themselves, and summer evenings rode upon the rise and fall of fragile empires. We hooked Tee’s younger siblings on the madness. Emotional, smack-talking Carcassonne tournaments became much-anticipated episodes in every family vacation.
The camp game nights we hosted every month or two continued strong right through Bug’s infancy. As the baby became a toddler, however, it became harder to play anything involving pieces or a time commitment. We had to truncate the tournaments to tend to the bath and bedtime. Carcassone gathered dust as we brought out the dominoes and the cards.
We have always kept piles of games around, but Bug has never shown much interest in playing by the rules. I watch with envy as friends can make it through entire games of Go Fish or Checkers with their preschoolers. Not Bug. We pull out anything from the stack, and he says, “I want to play my way!” The chips and buzzers become building materials. Play money goes into the purse. The kid refuses to engage with the component parts (or me) to achieve a larger objective.
Now, I’m not complaining – all kids are different. My not-yet-five-year-old is building intricate Lego structures intended for kids twice his age, and we are already on chapter fourteen of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He also loves nothing more than cranking the Latin hip hop and bouncing around the living room with me. I just wish from time to time, Bug and I could play a board game together on a quiet evening.
This is why I was giddy with delight when Bug slid the aged box from the bookcase and brought it over to me Friday night. “Let’s play Carcassonne,” he said. (Yes, he even remembered the name). We took out the fleece pouch, the wooden dudes, the scoreboards. It has been a couple years since I have laid eyes on a Carcassonne tile, so I had forgotten the pleasure I take in the play. How exciting to begin assembling that sprawling, ancient geography with my kid!
In a rare moment of focus, Bug listened as I explained how to place his pieces. We took turns drawing tiles and matching the roads, cities, and farms to one another. I made sure I gave him hints to win him quick, small bursts of points, and he moved his blue guy around the scoreboard with uncharacteristic honesty. We probably played – really played – Carcassonne for half an hour. Bug made it all the way around to 50 points, declared himself the winner, and moved on to using the dragon to attack my cities.
After we cleaned up the scattered pieces, we went upstairs to brush teeth and read a chapter of Harry Potter.
Sometimes my heart wrenches when look at this lanky, jabbering kid, and realize that little baby is gone forever. On nights like these, however, I realize what adventures are in store for us. Bug’s sense of fun is maturing as he does. Heck, in a few more years, he can be my skipper on the Canal du Midi. It will be a kick to climb with him up to the top of the tower of that medieval city. We can look out over a foreign yet familiar place, glimpsing together a landscape’s single moment before it becomes something else again.
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