Five Quiet Recognitions

This is the year we stop worrying we’re doing harm without knowing it.

The worry lives in the background. A low hum. You sprayed for mosquitos last year because that’s what you’ve always done. You’re not sure if it matters. You’ve heard things. You haven’t looked it up. Part of you doesn’t want to know. You just believe it’s “all natural”.

And so the summer arrives, and the water is still beautiful, the trees are still tall, you sit on the deck and you don’t think about it — until you do. Until you notice the silence and wonder: is this OK? Am I part of the problem?

That question doesn’t go away just because you ignore it.

There’s a way to know. Not perfectly — but enough. Enough to stop guessing. Enough to act from clarity instead of guilt.

This is the year we choose care over control.

You’ve done everything correctly. The beds around the cottage are mulched. The edges are clean. The shrubs are trimmed into shapes they didn’t choose.

And still — the cottage landscaping feels like something you’re holding in place. Not something alive. Something managed.

Control works. Until it doesn’t. Until you notice the effort it takes to keep things from becoming what they want to become.

Care looks different. It doesn’t hold. It watches. It makes room. It asks what the land is trying to do — and helps it do that.

That’s not neglect. That’s relationship.

This is the year we protect what made us fall in love with this place.

You remember the first time. The light on the water. The smell of the white pines. The feeling that this place was already complete — and you were lucky to be allowed in.

That feeling is why you bought your cottage. Why you come back ever weekend. Why you’ll pass it on.

But something shifts, year by year. Not dramatically. Just… incrementally. The water looks different. The shoreline feels less wild. The loons are fewer — or is that memory playing tricks?

You’re not imagining it.

Protection doesn’t require expertise. It requires intention — and someone who can translate that intention into ground.

The feeling you fell in love with isn’t gone. It’s waiting to be chosen.

This is the year our landscape finally reflects our values.

You know what you believe. You’ve changed how you eat, how you vote, how you talk to your kids about the world. The values aren’t abstract anymore. They’re how you live.

Except here.

Here, the lawn still runs to the water. The landscaping still looks like it could belong to anyone. There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s just nothing of you in it.

That’s the quiet dissonance. Not failure, just incongruence.

The land can hold what you believe.

Values become visible when they become ground.

This is the year we hand future “us” something better — not something to fix.

You’ve received things that someone else decided. Some were gifts. Some were burdens dressed as gifts. You’ve spent time undoing what didn’t have to be done that way in the first place.

Your cottage carries that weight too. Choices made quickly. Installs done cheaply. Problems deferred because there was always next year.

Now you’re the one deciding. And next year keeps arriving.

A legacy decision doesn’t feel urgent. It feels quiet. It’s the choice that future you will be grateful for — even if present you doesn’t get to see it finished.

This is how time becomes an ally instead of a pressure. And before long it’s time to open the cottage again.