Shoving off I'd normally be flipping through my rolodex of immediate and long-past troubles for no good reason. But not this morning. The water is glassy and the sky is too blue for that.

Along the shore are neat and tidy cottages and homes with lawns down to the water, one after the other. In my mind I add mature trees and a planted buffer along the shore of each one. I think about my fizzled landscape architecture career. So many thoughts.

After the last cottage the shore becomes a wild wall of cedars and dogwood. I'm not sure how I'm going to find the mouth of the small creek I'm looking for. Finally I see the faintest light strip against the dark vegetation. I'm hoping it's sand at the mouth of the creek. It is.

The creek is guarded by enormous underwater prop-mangling stumps and logs from another era. My kayak easily floats over them.

After pulling my boat on shore just a few hundred feet upstream from the mouth, I sit down in a completely different world. It's wild and teeming with life. The boats out on the lake are still faintly buzzing but only if you want to hear them. The sounds here are bird chatter, water burbling and insects thrumming.

I think about all the land along the banks of this creek. I think about where it's headwaters bubble up from the ground. I've walked a lot of that ground and it makes me happy to know it's protected and healthy. It makes me feel good that long after I'm gone cold, clean water will flow out into this lake. At least here, a whole, healthy system will contribute to the larger watershed.

I also wonder if it's enough.

But today I am grateful and awestruck that places like this exist and that people of every walk are willing to band together to keep them.