The Crying Rug

We had this hexagonal pure oak dining table growing up. It was monstrous and I loved it. For some reason, I remember it being set atop a somewhat fluffy rug in the dining room. Why would you put a rug under your dining table? I have no idea and half doubt the memory for how odd it seems.

Well, we never ate at the dining table anyway, except on holidays. Otherwise we ate out at restaurants every night. Mom was a full time single mother, and seemingly in a very toxic work environment, so I am sure cooking a meal after arriving home from a grueling day at work was the last thing she wanted to do. I get it. So maybe the rug was under the dining room table because it, like most things in our house, were just for show. I’m pretty sure even I was just for show.

I remember spending a lot of time on the rug under that dining table. It was my safe space. The table had these big thick oak legs that criss-crossed underneath it, so it was easy for a toddler to get lost in the wooden machinery of it. I remember cozying into the plushness of the rug, holding my Raggedy Ann doll, and looking up into the legs of the table, even gripping them and hanging by them over the rug.

I got lost in my imagination under that table. It was like I was in a different universe where the rest of the world could not touch me. The rug was soft — a strange contrast to the strong hardness of the table…