There are a lot of steep ridges along Contemplation Creek. The trees are thick and the picker bushes are plentiful. It can be difficult to get down close to the water without plunging right in.
The water flows rapidly here, but the stream is too narrow and shallow to achieve river status. There are two pools along the creek where it's just deep enough for swimming. On hot summer days, thick clouds of insects hover over those spots.
The water in Contemplation Creek is clear and uncontaminated, but there are no fish here. If you roll up your pants and walk up and down the stream, you can see your feet clearly on the rocky bottom.
The urban forest here is too hilly to be developed into housing and too unremarkable to be preserved as parkland. The Contemplation Creek area is seemingly useless to everyone and everything but the water that flows through it.
If you spend some time here, you'll start watching the water more closely. You'll see it carelessly bouncing off of rocks and downed tree branches, sometimes stalling in pools and sometimes flowing around each obstruction with ease.
In the winter, Contemplation Creek freezes over, and all of its water is perfectly still. You can walk right on top of it, going up and downstream with ease. In the spring and fall, you can hear the water flow under the snow and ice.
If you toss a big boulder through the ice in the middle of the half-frozen stream, you can dramatically alter the flow of water. If you wanted, you could build a dam in the summer and completely reroute Contemplation Creek.
The water doesn't care where it's going anyway, and neither do you. You're both going to dry up eventually and stop running. You might as well stomp through that ice and get your boots wet.
Your ancestors built a small wooden bridge across Contemplation Creek many years ago. It eventually rotted away and fell into the water. You can still cross any time you want; it just takes longer now.
Maybe you should build your own bridge. You could, if you wanted to. It's something to think about as you balance on a jagged, slippery rock, wondering why you keep coming back to this place, and how it came to get its name.
Paul Lundgren is a newspaper columnist and a very nice man. His e-mail address is paul [at] geekprom.com.
