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.

Not long ago, someone in a team meeting suggested offering the design for free. The rest of the room nodded. And I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut. The smoother a project looks in the field, the more invisible the thinking behind it becomes. But calling that thinking "free" quietly reduces years of technical training, creative problem-solving, and disciplined iteration to an afterthought. Design is not decoration. It's decision-making — and it deserves to be valued as such.

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.