The world has always moved mysteriously to me.  I think it’s our conception of time that bothers me most.  My  brother-in-law explained to me once that there is no past nor future.  There’s only now.  An ever continuous now.  We only  live in the now.  I don’t like this.  I mean, on the surface it’s reasoning seems sound.  Yes I can only live in this ever present, ever continuous stitch of time which is right now.  I mean right now.  I mean now.  You can go crazy trying to keep up with now.  It doesn’t take a break for anything or anyone.  But I did live before now.  I have memories of happenings long before this particular now.  They don’t seem as real as this particular now but I know I was  there.  I remember one  particular now when I was around eight or so years old.  I kept hearing this hissing sound under my radio flyer wagon.  I thought a tire was going flat.  I looked under it and saw a huge bull snake curled up underneath.  He was hissing and looking right at me.  I’d never been eye to eye with a big snake before.  That particular now scared the hell out of me.  That’s probably why that now lingers in my memory.  Of course I had a better now with another snake.  This particular now was about five years ago.  It’s one of the last now memories I have of my Dad before he went into the hospital that last time.  That’s a different now moment.  One I hope I never forget, and yet one I would like to forget.  Sometimes now can suck.  Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent.  This second now moment involving a snake happened when I opened the screen door to my house.  A huge bull snake had been creeping along the top of the screen door in order to inspect a Barn Swallow’s next right above the door.  The six feet long snake fell directly on top of me.  I screamed, jumped, and ran.  Dad and one of his hunting buddies happened to be walking toward the shop when this happened.  They thought something had happened to my wife judging from the high pitched scream I made.  They laughed at me.  I’m not ashamed of it.  You see what sound you make when a huge snake falls on your head.  It’s not a sound you have to think about making.  It just makes itself.  So go ahead and laugh.  Your time is coming.

       Those are good examples of things that happened in the ever-present now.  It makes it hard to stay in the now when so much stuff has happened in previous nows.  It’s a curse.  I would like to be able to go back and live some of those past nows.  Even if I did scream like a girl when the snake fell on me.  Even if I didn’t know I was actually living a re-run now and was totally unaware of what was fixing to  happen.  It would make that now much more fresh in my memory.  Those nows and this now are connected.  I know  this.  It’s still the same now.  The only thing that’s different is me.  The now is the same.  I’m different.  The more now wears on you the more you change.  Now doesn’t change.  That’s it’s power over us.  It never stops throwing a continuous stream of now at us.  You can fight it.  It will win.  The guy I  remember in some of those nows isn’t the same as this one.  I’m more careful in this particular now and yet I’m more desperate.  I’m much more aware of this continuous now than I ever was before this particular now.  Contrary to what you might think, you don’t get more used to it.  You get more aware of it.  Now drags continuously on.  It drags you with it.  The best you can hope for is to try and remember most of the good nows and some of the bad ones.  As soon as this particular now is gone another immediately begins and you’ve changed a little.  You don’t see it yet.  You will.