One of the most paramount song lyrics in my life comes from the musical, Hamilton: An American Musical. Towards the end, Alexander Hamilton sings, “Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” Lin-Manuel Miranda imprinted those lyrics in the back of my mind since my first time listening back in 2016. To me, it acts as a reminder that each of us can leave something good behind. The important question that follows is, what do you choose? The amount of options may feel overwhelming and the thought of changing the entire world is daunting but leaving an impact doesn’t have to be a massive task. Often times, the best place to start is at home or in your local community.
““Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s
planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.””
Every legacy is unique. Consider what happens when a stone is dropped into a small pond of lily pads. As the water ripples away from the spot it was thrown into, it reaches and affects every individual lily pad within its range. Actions behave in a similar way, influencing the people and the world around you even if you don’t directly see it. When it comes to the environment, our decisions can have major consequences that can be beneficial or harmful. I like to believe that when given the choice, people would choose to have a positive influence on our planet rather than a negative one. However, most of our actions have had largely negative effects on Earth and we’ve only begun working on changing that within the last 50 years. People have the ability to change humanity’s legacy if we can band together to make that change. Thinking about Lin-Manuel Miranda’s lyrics, one of the seeds I want to plant is solidifying and increasing public education about our environment. Environmental education is a key part of helping people realize how imperative it is to live sustainably if people want to live on Earth in the future. For me, joining the SLA is a great start to achieving my goal. I can serve in the community and teach people from a variety of age groups how they can make a positive difference in the environment, too.
Sometimes when I have a quiet moment to myself, I like to reflect on what my values are and what causes mean the most to me. Studying and understanding how ecosystems run and what work I can do to remediate the effects of climate change usually come to my mind. When you have the time, consider what matters most to you. If you have a tender spot for butterflies and their overall survival, maybe you could make your legacy a butterfly garden somewhere in your town or even your backyard. Involve your friends in your efforts. If your friends come to see your garden, you might even inspire them to create something of their own, too. Sure, planting a butterfly garden is a pretty literal interpretation of “planting seeds in a garden you never get to see,” but I would hope that you can enjoy the garden you grow just like the butterflies would. Maybe you’ll never get to see the butterflies thriving in your garden, but you can revel in knowing that you helped them and their future offspring.
I’ve only been here for two weeks but I can already tell that the SLA has solidified its impact for generations to come in the Squam lakes region. SLA serves as a leader in unifying nature lovers for causes such as defending the delicate population of loons on the lake and invasive species removal which plays a tremendous role in the health of the overall ecosystem. There is hard evidence that these actions have been making Squam Lake into a better environment and it’s wonderful to see and experience. Past SLA members and volunteers have truly made changes for the better and I am grateful to continue in this ongoing endeavor. My stone in the pond is just hitting the water but I can’t wait to see where my service will take me.
Dena is a half term member who has recently joined the LRCC team. A New Hampshire native, Dena graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in Environmental Sciences. You can read more about Dena here!