A convergence of carpets. A confluence of cousins.

Cousin and I went to the museum and there was a big white room with bright orange carpeting and immediately we wanted to frolic. You would have, too. We did some cartwheels and various leaps. If you really knew that room was yours, you could spend all day in there. But it's difficult to do cartwheels in dresses in public, because we are good Midwestern girls.

There is no way to express both the gravity and total frivolity of what was happening, because, you know, it's my life and we are limited with our monkey brains and throat gargles to fully communicate sentiment; still, I persist. My family is in carpet. I know a lot about carpet and have feelings and memories, w/r/t carpet, that I do not have for other woven goods or floor coverings. My grandfather, dead and damaged patriarch of the carpet side of the family, loved the color 'bright orange.' As soon as I saw the room I thought: John M. would have loved this.

I don't know how he would have felt about this: earlier that morning, the sixth John M. of my family was born. Six generations in America! As soon as I get to meet this new little one I will have met four of these men. By dint of history and biology and whatnot, I will have known them, learned much about carpeting from them, been raised by their crazy daughters, been loved by their amazing wives, and even eaten their un-sanctified Communion.

Now, however, I am far from them, in literal and figurative terms. But doing cartwheels in a room of bright carpet, with a cousin, with my eyes and hands and heart tied in with a history of carpet and Johns and myself: it was sweet like an orange lozenge in my mouth.