When caring for my mother after surgery, I went out on the small stretch of the Green in front of her house every evening. It was the time to decompress and connect that I needed during a difficult time. I would kayak hard upstream and then drift my way back as the sun was going down. Over those weeks, I visited with the resident snapping turtle, locked eyes with the local herons, and looked down on the minnows flitting in and out of the river plants. It felt like home.