My house had only been on the market for a few days, when my realtor called and told me we had received multiple offers. A couple of them were over the asking price, and he made a recommendation that I accept one in particular.

Before we had listed the property, I had done a thorough cleaning, culled my accumulated possessions, and packed nearly all of the nonessentials in sturdy cardboard boxes. Now that we had opened escrow, I needed to find a new place to live.

There are way too many motivating arguments to list in favor of leaving California. I can sum it up by saying that our elected officials have no compunction about taxing us into oblivion for the privilege of living in a land of natural beauty. The artificially steep costs continually rise, while the quality of life deteriorates, thanks to our leadership’s ineptitude.

Even so, this was my home for decades. I mustered my courage and contacted a realtor in a nearby state. Then I put my elderly, ailing dog in the car. He had been my Dad’s dog and had lived with me for the past three years. In that brief time, he became my sweetheart and a daily reminder of how blessed I was to have had such a wonderful father. On my way to the Interstate, I dropped the little guy off at our veterinarian’s boarding facility for safekeeping.

I was heading to a small city that I had never seen. The good news was that a close relative lived about an hour away from there, in a much larger city with a major airport. That would make it convenient for me to catch a flight to London, if I had the inclination. Besides that, a good friend of mine was getting set to retire, and she would be relocating to that city. At least I would not be completely isolated, as I was setting down new roots.

For a place with a population of about 100,000, my destination community had a lot going on. It was in a desert and surrounded by vividly colored rock formations. Because of its proximity to National Parks, it had a thriving tourist industry. That meant there were a lot of interesting shops, quality restaurants, and a variety of things to do.

A pleasant young real estate agent showed be several houses. On the second day, I saw one that I loved. With a shady front porch that was big enough for two big rocking chairs, a small table, and some potted plants, it would be a perfect place to sit and enjoy a cool evening. We wrote up an offer.

Before I got back home, my offer had been declined. I picked up my dog and was disheartened to see that in the four days I was away, his failing health had noticeably declined. Four days later he died. A few days after that, my buyer’s girlfriend’s mother, who had promised to make a gift of the downpayment, withdrew her gesture of largesse. The deal fell through.

About five months earlier, I had purchased a gift for myself, in anticipation of needing a lift to my spirits, as I settled into a new residence. It was a small reproduction of a Flemish tapestry, woven from wool and silk, called The Lady and the Unicorn: À mon seul désir (To my only desire). 

The original is many times larger and is one in a series of six. The other five tapestries depict scenes involving the five senses and are named Touch, Taste, Smell, Hearing, and Sight. 

The Lady and the Unicorn was created around 1500. The tapestries were in poor condition when they were rediscovered at Boussac Castle in France in 1841.

The author George Sand (1804-1876) frequently stayed at the castle. She was instrumental in getting the tapestries restored. They now hang at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. 

With the house devoid of most of my belongings, and my dog now reunited with my late Dad, I felt an emptiness that was hard to bear. My tapestry treasure was wrapped in white tissue and stashed in a dresser drawer. I took it out and unrolled it on the bed. For the first time, I noticed the Maltese dog sitting on a pillow on a low table to the Lady’s right. He looked a lot like my little sweetie, and I wished I could hold him one more time.

There really wasn’t much of a bright side to any of this, but without the dog, it was easier to clear out of the house when the realtor want to show it. It wasn’t long before we had another offer. Once again, we opened escrow. But now I didn’t know where I wanted to go when I moved out. Although I was still looking at listings in that city in another state, I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to live there.

About 30 some odd days later, escrow fell through again. This time the buyer, a single woman, got nervous because the shower liner didn’t reach up all the way to the shower head, and there was a small crack at the base of the kitchen faucet. Or something. One of the realtors had failed to secure a signature on some form or other, so all of the good-faith money deposited into escrow got returned to the buyer. 

I had basically put my life on hold for more than two months, and spent hundreds of dollars on cleaning, tree trimming, travel, and boarding. All I got out of it, besides the stress, was a tremendous stack of packed boxes, the hastened death of my dog, and a world of questions of what my next step would be. I withdrew my house from the market.

A few months later, my friend retired. I drove her to the airport and sadly said goodbye, as she moved away to begin the next phase of her journey. What we had not anticipated, however, was that her cancer would return. She died four months after settling into her new home.

As for me, I got on with life. I focused all of my energy on writing my book, thinking that when I finished the manuscript, I would sell my house. Every now and then, I would take the tapestry out of the drawer and look at it. 

About two years went by. Two years! One day I found the box where I had packed my favorite living room curtains. I got them out, ironed them, then hung them up. The next thing I did was rummage through a closet in the guest room, where I had stashed some curtain rods. I found the perfect one for the tapestry and screwed it into the wall in the bedroom. 

The Lady and the Unicorn: À mon seul désir is the last thing I see at night before I turn out the light, and it’s the first thing I see when I arise.

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