The Big Green Screen (and the PBS American Experience)

I had a week that plunged me into so many different places in my head that I wake this morning feeling fractured. There I was, walking around with Katherine, my fictional character of Philadelphia 1876. There I was back on the cortijo in southern Spain, recalling with my old cook, Stella, the reverberating horrors of the Spanish Civil War. I was editing a piece for a client on a dialysis center. I was looking forward at health care trends. I was talking with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the making of memoir and fiction.

And then, yesterday, there I was at the Constitution Center, waiting my turn for that seat before the big green screen and the phenomenally well-informed Mark Moskowitz, rehearsing in my head all that I think I know about George Childs, the great Philadelphia newspaper editor, philanthropist, and community builder. I'd been asked to share my thoughts on behalf of a PBS American Experience documentary-in-progress on the life of my city. I was wondering, as I waited, what I really had to contribute. I was feeling less than.

This, then, is what happened: I met Stephanie, in make-up, who redesigned my face and chatted all the while about dance choreographers (one of my favorite topics). I met Damon Sinclair, who promised to show me his box step. The lighting guys were kind, and Mark's questions were fantastic, and all of a sudden I forgot to feel the panic I'd arrived with. I walked into a community—I, the lonesome writer—and was given a place. George Childs came alive again, thanks to the caring of many.