As I sat in the kitchen this morning, I looked up from my coffee and newspaper to see a pair of red-winged blackbirds alight on the feeder. What a pleasant surprise it was to see those bright red and yellow patches against a pitch black field of feathers, even more pronounced with the white snowy trees behind. It set my morning off right.

This recent trouble of straying from the now vexes me. It shakes me that even at this point in my life, those feelings can still find me and shuck away my not easily acquired confidence and security. As I stare down the irrational, shooing it away with the love pumping vigorous through my heart’s valves, I am reminded of the need for constant vigilance. I am a human and I am imperfect. At any time, I can unfortunately revisit my past, with all its mistakes, steps untaken, and warped thoughts and feelings. This keeps me vulnerable, while at the same time reminding me of how far I’ve come. The damage cannot be undone, but it can be healed. It can also, with practice, be looked at objectively, learned from, and recognized as a point I have moved far beyond. And I need to allow myself to also see other people’s pasts in this same light. For we are all living together in the now, and what matters most is what happens between us in the present. It is also in part what determines the future. So, in that regard, it is much stronger than what lies in the past. The now is the essence of our resilience as humans. The now is where you and I are, building our lives together one moment at a time.