I am four, maybe five years old, standing in the coastal grass of a wild property my family had big dreams for. The Manzanita grows dense around the edges of the clearing, and in the evenings a cool breeze whispers through the oaks, the grass moving in long slow waves. The bermuda buttercups speckle the clover with bright bursts of yellow.

I remember picking one. The soft stem breaking between my fingers. And then — completely unprepared — a zap of lemony zest that I was not expecting but absolutely thrilled to discover.

None of what came after happened inside either.

Between the saguaros, rising from the rocky soil on long thin arms that reached straight up toward the sky, were plants I had never seen before. Not in a book. Not in a photograph. Not anywhere, actually. They looked like nothing I had a reference for — alien and architectural and strangely graceful, like ocean kelp translated into desert. I didn't say anything. My friends were still talking about the saguaros. I pressed my cheek back to the warm glass and watched the ocotillo go by and thought: What IS that.

I don't remember whose backyard it was. But I remember the tree — one of those coast live oaks that spreads itself wide and low like it has nowhere else to be. I was maybe seven years old, standing at the edge of a brook I hadn't noticed yet because above me, the canopy was doing something extraordinary. I didn't know what landscape design was. I was seven. I only knew how it made me feel. And I have never quite forgotten that feeling.

I was sitting in a leadership seminar, pen in hand, everyone around me writing furiously — and I had absolutely nothing. Not a scratch on the page. For a long time I read that moment as evidence of a deficit. Now I read it differently. Goals written in neat little rows have never been the thing that moves me. What moves me is the system. The process. The structure I trust enough to show up for — consistently. And as it turns out, that's enough. More than enough.

year ago today I was sitting on the floor of my studio apartment surrounded by boxes. Not packing boxes. Not yet. Just the regular accumulation of a life I had carefully built. I had been studying for my licensure exams for months. The finish line was close enough to see. And then someone appeared in the doorway, and I knew — before a word was spoken — that everything was about to rearrange itself into something unrecognizable.

Somehow, across every season of my career and life, the most consistent title I've held has been "Guinea Pig." I'm the oldest of six, so by default I was the first test case. That role has followed me into adulthood — relentlessly. Being first doesn't mean being helpless. It means moving forward without certainty and staying long enough to learn from what works and what absolutely does not.

"Just do it" has been the most uncomfortable — and most important — lesson of my early career. At the transition between school and the professional world, I came face to face with something I didn't expect to be so paralyzing: the fear of not knowing enough. What I've learned is that growth, especially early on, often looks like doing the thing without support, resources, or a guarantee that you're the right person for it. You might just be.

My family never seemed to be talking about what might happen or dreaming out loud about what life could be. We were often too busy doing. Growing up on an undeveloped piece of land in rural California, I watched my parents shift hillsides, run irrigation lines, and build environments out of nothing. That mindset — have a plan, then go create it — is exactly what drew me to landscape architecture. Everything we draw is something we intend to do.