I can finally see all the walls of the basement. It’s 6:30 on a Saturday. The fifteenth of September to be exact. 83 days after I began this adventure.
Everything in the house is either in the container ready to cross the Atlantic or in an archive, a museum, or was sold or donated to charity. All that’s left is a bottle of Champagne, my suitcase, two carry-ons, a folding beach chair, a queen-sized air mattress, and some clothing and eating utensils to be tossed on trash day.
Monday is trash day and will be my last morning in the house I have occupied for 35 years in a now charming section of downtown Philadelphia. Monday will also mark the end of my nine years of teaching filmmaking at The Art Institute of Philadelphia.
I open the Champagne and sit in my beach chair staring at a wall where my flat screen television once was mounted.
The sun begins to set so I step out on the teak deck I built for the last time. I raise my glass to the Philadelphia skyline as day falls to night.
The lights in the trees on my movie set block come to life.
It is odd to sit in a house that you have made your own for so long and hear the echoes from the bare walls and emptied rooms. I realize that my life here is just a brief chapter in the 150 year history of this house though for my son it represents the only home he remembers other than the one he has made for himself in New York.
