Just a visitor now

With eight days to go before the grand opening, this video shot April 23 shows the landscaping of the new VMFA 3 1/2-acre sculpture garden, which covers the top of the museum's parking deck and slopes down to ground level. Video running time: 63 seconds

For the past four years, the view from my office at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has been of a construction site. Finally, the expanded VMFA will open to the public May 1.

Friday was my last day working for the museum. I shot this video from the loading dock of the VMFA Pauley Center, which is where my office has been since 1999. (I had to stay on the loading dock, because the construction site is a hard-hat area.) It'll give you a taste of the last-minute work being done to create the E. Claiborne and Lora Robins Sculpture Garden. By opening day, most of the garden will be green.

My true retirement date from the museum was April 1, 2004, the date I wrapped up 30 years on the job as assistant director of marketing and communications. But a month after I retired, the museum called me back to work as a part-time contract writer. By last Friday, I had wrapped up all I could before the grand opening this coming Saturday, so I called it quits. It was a good, long, ride, but there are other trains and planes to catch now. Life is finite, and there are other things that I want to accomplish.

There are places I want to visit or revisit -- in Richmond, across Virginia, and around the world. I also want to write, for myself for a change. And there are so many books to read, on the deck in the summer and in front of the fireplace in the winter.

I was invited to three previews of the new, expanded museum. One was the media preview, another was the black-tie special members preview, and the third was the regular members preview. I declined all three invitations.

On Saturday, May 1, I'll join the crowd for the public grand opening. After more than 30 years on the inside, I'll be just a visitor. I think I'll like that.