There is a flowering shrub, brunfelsia grandiflora, planted next to my house. It's about 8 feet tall, and it has an abundance of lavender and white flowers. The buds that form are exactly the same green as the leaves, nearly invisible. They are the flowers-to-be, the potential for tomorrow.

As they burst into bloom, for one day in full glory, the bush seems to be a solid mass of magnificent color. These are today's flowers, potential realized, to be enjoyed, part of the natural cycle of bloom and pollination.

But for one day only. The next day, the yesterday blooms are white and dying, their joyous beauty only a memory, sweet or sad as the viewer wishes to interpret it. Their day is over.

I take life the same way: tomorrow is a promise, a hope, a potential for good or harm. There's no authentic reason to fear it or rejoice in it. The potential unfolds as it will.

Yesterday is gone. The regrets, the sorrows, the joys, the experiences, can neither be changed nor erased. The past of yesterday's flowering serves to remind me that life is in the present.

For today is all we truly have. Right now. This moment. Look up from your computer, from your book, from your stack of bills and checkbook; look out the window or step outside your door and take a deep, cleansing breath. Today and each other, right now, is all we have.

Live one day at a time (Matthew 6:34). As my mother used to say (repeatedly), Don't borrow trouble.