The Unicorn in Captivity

Another indoor blip. I WAS going to be able to spend yet another night in my own home, and planned to spend it working on the Photo Album for our web site. But at midnight, Mom called and said she was not feeling well and so I packed up my computer, the dogs and myself and came back to be with her. But she turned down the anti-nausea medicine. I sure don't have to worry about her getting addicted to anything. She is really a minimalist when it comes to taking medication. She does have the minimum pain patch on -- because she had the big event to go to on Saturday, and the Shingles were acting up. I do believe they are slowly getting better, but it isn't as though she is over them.

This morning I got up to walk the dogs and I stumbled, lost my balance and fell. Fortunately, it was on the grass. I didn't get seriously hurt, but I ache all over now. Macy wasn't pulling me or anything, I was just sleepy and stumbled.

The Unicorn in Captivity is the 7th and final one of a series of French tapestries at The Cloisters in New York. I went to NYC City in 1966 with a social welfare program called VISTA -- known as the Domestic Peace Corps. Soon after I arrived, a group of us went up to The Cloisters and when I saw these tapestries it was love at first sight. The Cloisters is a medieval monastery brought over from Europe by the Rockefellers. It is part of the Metropolitan Museum. It is an amazing place with a stupendous view of the Hudson. It's not that easy to get to, though, and so it was 25 years or more before I returned. So I have only seen the real thing twice. Between the two trips I had done some weaving myself, though nothing like this! When I moved to Texas in the late 90s, I saw this in a catalogue and had to have it. I was just starting to furnish my house (which had belonged to my grandmother) and this tapestry was the most money I had, at that time, ever spent on any one item (I was very poor when I lived in NYC). It's still my all time favorite piece of art and one of the best investments I've made in terms of the joy I've received from having it. It's a reproduction, of course, but is handmade in France which is probably where the original was made.

It can be seen spiritually as symbolic of the Resurrection of Christ, which is how I take it, or alternatively as the consummation of marital love. I have a booklet which identifies most of the many hundreds of different plants -- truly "Mille Fleur".