The bike trail parallels the river toward downtown. Recent flooding has left certain parts of the trail underwater, but the stretch we followed last evening through the last hour of daylight was high and dry. The swollen river was not only stretching its banks, but was running so swiftly I began to wonder if was chasing a deadline. One bird was taking full advantage of the flow, having landed on a piece of driftwood, cruising downstream. Whatever gets you where you need to go!
The bird's migrant perch was not the only wood drifting. Caught around the pylons supporting one of the over passing bridges was a logjam of myriad detritus, swelling in width like a downhill snowball swells in velocity and girth; first a log that catches a second, which together snag a branch whose wider spread entangles still more. At the time of our forward passing, the jam was emulating urban sprawl, of such a size to merit its own zip code. Whether or not it had actually grown still larger by the time of our return stretch an hour or so later, its skirt certainly seemed to cover more of the surface. Undisturbed, it won't be long before the jam becomes a dam -- feeding itself like a giant, webbing spider.
I thought of certain behaviors that create a similar capitalizing effect -- one act becoming two becoming exponentially larger. Lies, for example; a new one required to cover the old one, requiring still more to sustain the charade. Deception, that requires more and more fuel. Indiscretions that become a cottage industry of manipulation and evasion, half-truths and full-blown deceit.
Someone will surely boat in or crane down and dislodge the jam in the river. It will not be left unattended forever, and I can almost imagine the river's sigh of freed relief. Our own varieties are usually dismantled in a way that usually brings more pain than relief -- sooner or later by the truth, which, like the river, can be blockaded for awhile, but pushes and pushes and pushes...
...to be free.
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