I like to take pictures of flowers. It’s easy: They don’t move, they look pretty, and the macro setting on the iPhone is almost as good as the real macro lens I had for my 35mm camera 30 years ago. It’s sometimes slightly challenging to get the focal depth and framing right, but not challenging enough that I can’t stop and do it while I’m walking the dogs.

But more importantly, stopping to notice pretty flowers is a nice way I remember to find beauty that is all around us, every day. “Stop and smell the roses” is a cliché for a reason.

After more than three decades in the Bay Area, it’s also a pleasant way to mark the passage of time. Certain flowers start blooming at certain times. When I see them again, it’s a reminder that a year has passed. It never feels like it’s been a whole year.

In some ways, it serves the same purpose as a lot of my daily memento mori practices. Buddhism has a practice of death meditation, maranasati, in which we contemplate the inevitability of our own mortality. Some people think that’s morbid, which I find a little strange.

We’re all going to die, but that’s easy to forget, day-to-day. For me, trying to keep it at the forefront of thinking encourages me to find enjoyment and gratitude in something every day, because I never know if it will be my last. It also reminds me to tell the people I love how much I appreciate them, and say the things I need to say without putting them off, because none of us is guaranteed a tomorrow in which to say them.

It’s also reflected in more ordinary ways, like walking the dogs along a different route every day, so that I might see something different, or making sure to get outside and take a walk during the work day, even when I’m busy.

I have a countdown app on my phone and have it set up to show a widget that tells me the number of days until, statistically, I can expect to die. Today it’s at 12,520 days.

Every day that passes is one fewer on that countdown. So every day should count, and include something memorable, even in a small way.

Like taking a picture of a pretty flower, for example.

The flowers bloom for a little while, and then they’re gone. Just like all of us.