The Rug

Oh, that rug my brother said as it unrolled onto his hard wood floor, I had that rug in New Jersey 18 years ago. And so started the modern journey of what my family just calls "the rug". The original journey began back in the 1950's when my mom's sister brought the rug back from the orient to their family home in New Jersey. Sometime in the eighties when the last of the family living in that house died my mom brought the rug to our home in New York where for a time it served as the floor covering in our playroom. There are two small areas where the colors have run, my mom says from where the dog peed on it and my brother says from when he and a friend tried to wash it - so who knows??

The modern part of the tale starts in 1990 with my brother's interning for a semester at Bell Labs in New Jersey where he rented part of a house with hardwood floors. We must have driven the rug out to him with anything else he would have needed for the house. After a the short time in New Jersey the rug went back to my parents house for a few years, probably stored in the basement. In 1994 it was shipped out to my brother in Seattle to cover the floor in his apartment and then in his space at the Zen Center. There was some sort of shipping mishap causing the rug to be sent to Seattle, sent back to New York and then shipped out again but it got there eventually. The summer of 1999 as I was moving into a duplex in Minneapolis with bare wood floors and my brother was moving to Hawaii he shipped the rug out to me, non slip mat and all. I spent three years in that house then moved into a carpeted apartment. Not knowing what to do with the rug I put it on top of the carpet under my bed, which created a cozier bedroom. I did the same in California, where it's been for the past five years. Last week my brother moved to Albuquerque, renting a home with hardwood floors. So I called a friend who runs a business where he does a lot of shipping to get some help sending out the rug. We rolled it up, wrapped it in plastic, slapped a UPS tag on and off it went. It looks good in this house in Albuquerque though it's not quite the Southwest style. The rug is truly a wonderful work of art, and I got many complements on it over the years. But my favorite thing about it is it's been well used and enjoyed by our family, our friends and even with its edges unraveling and stained spots it still has a long life ahead of it and who knows where it will go from here.