Welcome Home

Mile Marker 450:

When I wake up, I think I'm looking at the hazy beach sky.  Then the happiness washes over me.

I AM HOME!

My bedroom ceiling is painted a calm blue-gray color.  Its wooden fan spins against the heat.  I’m lying in my bed under a single cotton sheet.  It’s barely 6 a.m., and the light leaking through the blinds is neutral and white, like it isn’t fully awake yet.

I stretch and inhale the air of my own room.  My own house.  I soak it up like an old friend.  I listen for sounds on the street – neighbors chatting, car doors slamming – but it’s still early and quiet.   

A Saturday.

I rouse slowly; exercise my leg and ab muscles as if living here depends on it.  As if the last 7 weeks have led up to this moment. 

From the edge of the bed I reach for my Genium, plugged in against the wall.  My assortment of pull-bags, lotions, and shrinkers have found their own way home, back to their usual baskets and shelves.

I suction my leg in carefully, determined to get a good fit on the first try.

Today anything seems possible.

Mile 450 marks my second homecoming.  The first one was last July.  Back then, my home-care OT Keith came over to design accommodations:  railings to be added, kitchen shelves to be rearranged, bathroom supplies to be set-up.  We considered how safe I might be on each of the four floors.

To prepare me further, PT Julie helped me load up grocery bags and carry them into the kitchen.  We practiced going up and down each stairway with my prosthesis.   We role-played how to bring small bags of laundry from the bedroom to the basement.  We made an emergency plan:  throw your crutches down the stairs, slide down on your bottom, and get the heck out!

But on this early morning, I descend the stairs slowly.  My knee bends obediently, and my hands trace the TWO smooth railings, crafted last summer by friends Robert and Jim.

In the kitchen I fill the kettle for tea and open the garden door.

Winter '09-10

Born from cinderblock and weeds, this garden has survived through droughts, floods, and blizzards.  

It is the length of my entire house, and allows my parties to double in size.

Now strawberries and chives push up from between the patio bricks.  When friends visit, they'll gather wild bunches of lavender and rosemary.  

“It’s the South Philly soil,” I always say.  But that’s not entirely true.  This garden needs tending and weeding and watering, day after day in the Philly heat.  This summer I know I’ll be begging for help.

Outside, it’s already a humid 82 degrees and feels even hotter.   I keep the door open anyway.

After breakfast, I revisit every inch of the house.  I delve into the basement and climb up the spiral stairs to the 3^rd floor.   I look at my photos and study my books.  I pour Draino down the shower drain.  I rerun the dishwasher;  I can’t remember if the dishes inside are clean or dirty.

With every step, I am more at home.  Even lugging laundry down the stairs feels like a privilege.

It’s a peaceful thing, but also bittersweet and temporary.  Like a late afternoon on the beach.

I love this house inside and out.  From the moment I unlocked the door, it held promise.  In the past seven years, I’ve made it mine from the ground up.  

But I know it will soon OVERWHELM me.

It holds obstacles already.   Two floors are off-limits without my prosthesis.   In bad weather, it confines me inside.  And even with my prosthesis, this house is just A LOT of work.

So my summer mission is to search for a new place.  One that will feel like home, but also like FREEDOM.

By the end of Mile 450, my friend Jen stops by with a tiny jar of “South Philly Strawberry” – jam she's cooked up from the berries in my garden.  

Bosco comes over to help me water.

Then in the evening, as I'm ready to trek up to my bedroom, there’s an unexpected knock at the door. 

It’s my friend Jim.  Just stopping to say "hi" on his walk home from work.  We chat through the screen.

I'm tired, but tickled.  These kinds of surprises can only take place here, in this house. 

They are like dipping, twirling kites against the beach sky.

I AM HOME.

Take the rough-cut homemade video tour!