My ticket to ride...

Looking forward, courtesy of the BN/Santa Fe line...Near Troy, Montana

I have spent a lot of time considering "tomorrow" recently. I have also spent a great amount of time looking back. That hasn't left a lot of room for considering now.

Now is probably the most important moment I have. Now is all I can be assured of. And sadly, now is fleeting. Disappearing before my very eyes into the blurred unchangeable yesterday.

It's too damn late to do much about yesterday. I know this logically, but I sometimes remain stuck there trying to understand it all. Yet the answers, riddles and unexplained realities I hope to find revealed in such history remain allusive.

Tomorrow remains always disappearing around the bend, blinding me like the setting sun with what I can not see. I can't make out too many details. Images blur, they focus, but in the end what I think I know, is often distorted and subject to change.

I think I see a path, like those parallel rails, but I'm really not sure where it leads. No matter how hard I try, I can't see around the next moment, and as I ride the rails, ever forward, so much uncertainty seems paralyzing and overwhelming. I didn't see this moment coming. I don't see the next. I only know what I've seen, and like all things in life, love, and war, even that is subject to revision.

So, the focus today is on now.

My eyes, as undependable as they've become take it all in. The sun. The frost catching air, sparkling as it descends to earth. The blue sky reflecting in the bluer waters of the Pend Oreille. The moment crisp air touches my face when I step outside. The sound of the geese on the water. The hint of a breeze through the bull pines.

Now, this moment, is all I truly have. But certainly it's worth every second.