The Rug

Yesterday I bought a hand woven Afghan rug from a French woman who is moving back to France with her family. It was obvious she was very attached to it.  She said that if the airlines let people bring more bags she'd take it with her.  It's an interesting rug  Because it's handwoven, the edges aren't completely straight, but it has a lot of character.  I put it in my kitchen.  It looked very nice there and I was pleased with my find.

Today she emailed me to see if the rug worked out ok for me and offered to take it back if it didn't.  She said she was sad to have let it go and kind of wanted it as a souvenir of her time in Ithaca.  Now, I liked it a lot but I know that it sucks to move 3000 miles, and there are a lot of emotional ups and downs, and getting sentimental about weird things, etc.  I also know that on top of dealing with the move she has a one year old and a three year old.  It helps a lot to have little acts of kindness during those stressful times. So I told her that it looked very nice in my house and I liked it but that I could return it to her if she wanted.  She was very relieved and grateful.  I'm dropping it off on my way to work tomorrow.
It's sort of a shame, though - I was already starting to get rather attached to it myself.