Hood

Today I have been looking out my fourth floor window in Oregon City.
There stands Hood.
For a moment, I am angry.
I look at it as a killer.
But then, I realize, it’s not a person. Not even a thing.
Just rocks and ice.
With kids and swimming pool deaths – I think it’s called an attractive nuisance.

Put a rock in a school play yard – what happens? Kids crawl on it.
Is it not primordial?Icarous trying to reach the sun.

I remember working for the City of Gresham and talking about our fire fighters. We talked about the danger.
One old-timer scoffed and said, of course it’s dangerous. Why do you think they love it? Otherwise it would just be big boys playing with water.

I look back at Hood.
So many feelings.
Knowing that two perished there.
That I am looking at someone’s…grave.
But also, I am looking at someone’s self-selected demise, to the extent one voluntarily and recreationally puts themselves in harms way.
Rather than say, in a convoy around the world.
Hood is also a choice.
Hood is freedom.
The freedom to choose.