Last evening, the sun setting, I sat by the river trail in Pottstown. No paper in hand. No book. No pen. Just sat and watched the sun change the color of the trees, the ducks disturb the water, the cyclists stream by in fluorescent shirts.
Later I walked down the road to Montgomery Community College West and spoke of river history and river dreams with those who know the river best—trail blazers, volunteers, bikers, historians, people with stories to tell about Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, teachers, artists, a minister, a former physician who has brought his exacting eye to river trails and maps.
It takes a village to rescue rivers. What river rescuers we're blessed with.
With thanks to Kurt Zwikl and Laura Catalano of the Schuylkill River Heritage Area, who created the evening. With thanks to everyone who came—such warmth, such very good questions. And looking forward to Thursday evening, when I travel to the city to meet with another cadre of river souls as part of our celebration of the river.
Anyone who loves our river is welcome.
Join us.
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:
-->
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.
It was a weekend of many friends and many faces. Talking memoir, then book marketing at the annual Push to Publish conference. Performing a "Blurred Lines" cha-cha with my husband at the gorgeous Goodhart Hall on the Bryn Mawr College campus (we're still standing). Setting off for a perfect Sunday with our son, a day that ended with this glimpse of New York City magic.
In the week ahead I'll be at Montgomery County Community College (Tuesday evening) and at Trinity Center for Urban Life (Thursday evening) to give a talk I've titled "RIVER DREAMS: History, Hope and the Imagination," a keynote on behalf of the Schuylkill River's designation as the 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year. The events are free and open to the public, and we hope you'll consider joining us. More information can be found
here. I also hope to be able to finish reading (and subsequently blogging) Daniel Menaker's
My Mistake, a terrific memoir about the life of this former editor. We make mistakes (I've not yet met a perfect person). Some deeply change the course of our lives, or the lives of others. Some are cheek-blushing, oh-damn foibles from which we learn. Menaker's book (I'm halfway through) yields, above all else, perspective. I look forward to sharing more of it here in days to come.
