In the midst of a busy afternoon, two copies of LOVE arrive in all their hardbound glory.

I have stopped.

I have paged through.

Temple University Press, you did an amazing job. The photos are rich, the paper is kind, the cover broadcasts our love for our city.

Thank you.

LOVE is now officially on sale.

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Indeed, it was hot. Indeed there was more water percolating up from our own skin than flowing past in the Delaware River beyond. But for three hours yesterday afternoon, at the gorgeous historic Biddle estate, Andalusia, I had the great pleasure of working with the young environmentalists and active citizens of the Fairmount Water Works' Project Flow as well as the teens of the Texas Aqua Squad.

Together we explored the grounds, hunted for magic, metaphor, and simile, collected turkey feathers, studied a recreated grapery, discovered portraits of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte, searched for colors, listened to the 1886 words of Biddle's Aunt Kitty, pondered departures and returns, and interviewed one another.

To those who spoke as shadows, the color red, the everything of green, an albino snake, and so much more, to those who listened to their partners so well that they could tell their stories for them, to those who said I can't and then discovered I can, thank you.

Let's be weird together. Always.

(With thanks to Ellen Schultz and Connie Griffith Houchins.)

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Last year I shared the extraordinary news that my river autobiography, Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, was selected as a core element in a William Penn Foundation-funded program designed "to improve environmental education in Philadelphia middle schools."

The first sweep of teachers is now meeting every Saturday morning at the Water Works (pictured above) to build the sweeping curriculum that will change the way children learn in my city. This morning, I'm joining my dear friend Adam Levine there on site to contribute to this program. Adam will be sharing his huge knowledge of secret city water ways and streams that have become sewers. I'll be teaching the teachers how to teach Flow, giving them writing exercises and critiquing ideas.


And so into the frosty cold we go....

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I walked the new Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk before my river talk last evening. The skies were expressive, pewter and blue, and from this 15-foot-wide float of walkway over the river herself, I saw the city as I had not seen her before. One of the many exhilarating advantages of this new and elevating space.

Another advantage? The joy of it. The Philadelphians who are coming to know, and to better see, their river. The sense that they don't take this for granted, and why should they? It wasn't all that long ago that the Schuylkill was sludge and noxious fumes, dead water, a place to be hurried past. Now, thanks to the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, Fairmount Water Works, Schuylkill River Heritage Area, the William Penn Foundation, the people I have met this week at the 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year events, and many others, the Schuylkill is the place to be.

I've written here about the Heritage Area. I've written here about Fairmount Water Works. Today, my spotlight is on the SRDC.

Already offering kayaking and river tours, skateboard parks and overlooks, this brand-new boardwalk, and the idea of the bucolic in an urbanscape, the SRDC is hardly done with its quest to build "trails and greenway running along both banks of the Schuylkill River wherever possible between the Fairmount Dam and the Delaware River." Now planned or in play are the Bartram's Mile, destined to run along the west bank between Grays Ferry Avenue and 58th Street (and one-day connecting to the Grays Ferry Crescent by an abandoned railroad bridge); a pedestrian/biking west bank trail; and an east-side trail between the South Street Bridge and Christian.

All I know is words. The SRDC, the organizations mentioned above, the river advocates who work on behalf of tributaries, against run-off, for the future—they are the ones making the physical, even quantifiable difference to our city.

Find a way to thank them the next time you head off toward the river. You wouldn't be there without them.

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We invite you to our celebration of the Schuylkill River, 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year. This evening I'll be at Montgomery County Community College West Campus, in the Community Room in South Hall at 7 p.m. A second presentation will be held on Thursday Oct. 16 at 7 p.m. at the Trinity Center for Urban Life in Philadelphia. Both events are free.

I'm deeply grateful to the good people at Schuylkill River Heritage Area, Fairmount Water Waters, Schuylkill Banks, and Temple University Press, who have so generously spread the word. My talk, titled "River Dreams: History, Hope, and the Imagination," begins like this:

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Neither oil nor borders. Not religion. Not historical hurts or misremembered sleights. None of these. The next world wars, the experts say, will be fought over water. Over the three percent of the earth’s liquid total that pools in ponds and lakes, careens down channels, overruns crevasses, oozes from retreating glaciers, is barricaded up inside man-made reservoirs, is yanked up from the bottom of the well, is carried, jug to jug and bottle to hand toward cupped palms. Seeds, omnivores, carnivores, herbivores, feathered things—they need it. So do the pink dolphins and the mighty mollusks and the bulge-eyed toads and the little girl with the cascade of curls who has come to the banks with her heart set on adventure.

More can be found here.

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My collaboration with the Fairmount Water Works is long and rich, and today I'm pleased to share the news that that relationship has now been extended through a fantastic new program funded by the William Penn Foundation.

The program, designed to "improve environmental education in Philadelphia middle schools and to engage new audiences in art," is fully described below. Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, a book I've taught to the children of Project FLOW, will be an integral part of this program—a copy given to each participating student and teacher. I'll also be meeting with the teachers to conduct a writing workshop based on the book.

I am, of course, delighted.

The release about the broad program, as it appears in today's Philly.com:

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A pair of grants from the William Penn Foundation will allow the Fairmount Water Works to improve environmental education in Philadelphia middle schools and engage new audiences through art.


The Foundation awarded the Fairmount Water Works $506,000 to launch a three-year Middle School Teacher Fellowship Program to develop a curriculum that integrates urban watershed education with core science and English standards for sixth through eighth grade students. It also awarded an $82,500 planning grant for the Fairmount Water Works to prototype an interactive and kinetic sculpture near the river and the Water Works’ historic building.

Middle School Fellowship Program
Fifty-four Philadelphia School District teachers will create and test lessons in their classrooms and receive monthly training, classroom support from environmental educators, curriculum specialists and experts from the Philadelphia Water Department, and funds for supplies, staff development and bus transportation for field trips. The program is based on the Fairmount Water Works’ existing program, Understanding the Urban Watershed Curriculum Guide, a framework for lessons on watershed, and water use in the context of an urban environment. More than 1,500 students will be reached in the program’s first three years.

“We’re developing this curriculum at a time when the need for high-quality environmental education is critical so students can understand the issues we face in Philadelphia, and across the United States,” said Karen Young, Director of the Fairmount Water Works. “Our goal is to help teachers increase engagement and academic achievement by integrating real-world environmental experiences, hands-on exploration and project-based learning into the classroom.”

Student teacher volunteers from Temple University’s TU Teach program, University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and Bryn Mawr College’s Community Praxis program will also support the teachers.

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We let the flowers fall gently down (bless our Schuylkill River). We watched the children chase the bubbles, sparkle their fish, play the music of the drip drum, watch the mechanical flotilla, choose a history question to answer: Do you remember a flood? Do you have an umbrella story? We watched them build a sculpture out of water drops and silkscreen a poster. And that was beautiful.

But this was beautiful, too: the way we adults quietly took it in—the thrumming of the river, the pavilion of flowers, the old-world mechanics of water power, the simple rising of the tide against a fiber texture. There we were, in a city, and what we felt was a quieting down, a simplifying, a moment for prayer.

Congratulations to Fairmount Water Works, Karen Young, Victoria Prizzia, all the artists, and the many people who came to the Flow Festival. The city at its finest. I'm stepping back from the words right now. The pictures tell the story.

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I had planned to title this post "Two Weddings, One Singer, and a Tower," but things got rearranged this morning when it became clear that all the photos I took during my yesterday-long city jaunt are stuck on a malfunctioning photo stick. Imagine, then, that you are glancing at images of newly married happiness, Old City art, a Reading Market singer, and Philadelphia's now-famous pop-up beach. If I can rescue the photos from oblivion. I will share such things in time.

In the meantime, I moved from writing about sidewalks and nearly subterranean Philadelphia last month in the Inquirer to writing about Philadelphia from on high (City Hall) this time around. That story can be found here.

Today, following morning worship with my dad and a happy-making baby shower with dear friends, I'll be back in the city, on the banks of the Schuylkill, for the FLOW Festival with Fairmount Water Works, where a variety of artists are gathering in celebration of the river. Drip Drums, Sonic States, Splash Organ, and Fishway River Net Flood Stories will all be on display, and the day will end with a Grand Finale Light Show that will include, in multimedia fashion, words from Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River. Look for my neon green walking shoes, end of spectacular day.

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We reach a certain juncture in life and we realize that there's only so much time left to us now. We look back and ask, Have we done enough, loved enough, been enough? We look ahead and ask, What now?

I have always been real with myself; I have known the me within. What are my passions? Children and stories. What have I done? Raised a son I love more than any story can tell and written books that a handful of kind souls have read. I've been flat-out lucky to publish as many books as I have, given the sales that I've had. I've been unimaginably blessed to be given the chance to take my stories into classrooms and into the open hearts of the young. I learn from them, again and again. Frankly, I love them.

Two Tuesdays ago I taught at a multi-week camp for young scientists and activists at the Fairmount Water Works. The camp is called Project FLOW. My privilege is to get the children thinking and writing about the soul of the river, akin to my own work in Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River (Temple University Press). Kevin Ferris and the Inquirer team made the moment even brighter when agreeing to publish my photo essay (which includes the work of the young people) about that morning.

I'll provide the link when it goes live tomorrow. A few more photos from last week's post are here.

In the meantime, below, all of the children of the 2014 Project FLOW. Here they are listening to Sashoya read from her brilliant river creation myth.
Finally, thanks to my friend, the poet Kate Northrop, whose poem "Things Are Disappearing Here" got us all started.

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