I grew up in the plains of North Dakota with dry tumbleweed summers and crystal icicle winters. I was raised on a Persian carpet. My world through child-eyes was rich in color and pattern. I played for many intense hours on a firm foundation for life. I learned to walk on a one-of-a-kind, highly durable, hand-woven, warm woolen floor covering.

Our father brought our family carpet from Iran in 1929 after teaching science in Tehran for five years in a Presbyterian school. Our living-room centerpiece rug was an original piece of thousands of hand-tied knots portraying nature’s intricate unfolding in deep tones of red, beige and hues of blue.

I built Lincoln Log cabins and Tinker Toy contraptions and happily knocked them down without harm on our long-lasting work of floor art. I marched my Christmas dolls in their freshly starched frilly pink dresses on the outer edges of well-defined ornate borders. Thus I knew without a doubt, events and life experiences came in cycles and also had beginnings and endings. Secure in my well-defined and finely crafted space, I felt encouraged to unfold my creative world.

Three sisters were we; unaware we were wearing a miniature concave crater in the center circle of our beloved play space. We spent hours with our noses to the shorn-surface, our eyeballs and tiny tight-fisted knuckles aligned perfectly with the prized carpet’s bulls-eye center in exciting marble shooting matches.

Our stay-at-home mom never complained about rug wear and tear. She sensed we were learning how to focus for life’s challenges, while still staying aware of broader contexts. Our familiar old carpet taught us about form, balance, proportion, beauty and spirituality. It had depth, diversity and life and death stories to tell us, right under our kneecaps.

Our wedding present from our parents for surviving sisters turned out to be Persian carpets from our father’s return trip to Iran when we were grown-up. By then we knew how really far away he’d traveled to bring these family treasures home. He climbed lofty mountains to personally visit families where these jewels were loomed. He made it his mission to acquaint himself with their culture, drank tea with their families from their samovar and bought directly from the artisan.

As sisters, we raised all our children on Persian carpets. While growing up, our son helped wear down the center of our living room rug while playing sports games. Is it possible we passed on some basic life tools that were embedded and interwoven in our well-made Persian carpet?

Sara Aeikens resides in Albert Lea.