My parents didn’t have a clue what the impact of bringing me to Homosassa Springs State Park in Florida at the tender age of nine was going to be. It ended up not only shaping my elementary school passions, but determining my life’s work.

I first wrote this essay about the strange ways childhood experiences shape us for the wonderful live show (and podcast), The Story Collider. I performed it live at Busboys and Poets in Washington D.C. on January 26, 2017 and you can check out the video on Facebook. As I’ll be returning to Homosassa Springs tomorrow with my kids, I thought now was an appropriate time to share it!

Most nine year olds in 1993 were worried about which Lisa Frank folder they were going to use in math class. But me? I was going to save the manatees.

That summer, my family took a trip to Florida. I enjoyed Disney World, but it wasn’t Walt’s creation that captured my imagination. No, it was Homosassa Springs State Park. More importantly, it was their residents, the manatees.

At the time, rangers put on “shows” with manatees, where they fed them biscuits for rolling over. The bleachers surrounding the lagoon were hot and sticky. But I ignored my sweaty legs sticking to the hot metal. Instead, I leaned forward to see better. I listened as if the rangers were going to give a pop quiz afterwards.

But the thing that left the biggest impression? The fish tank.

Down a set of slippery stairs was a glimpse into an underwater world. From inside a plexiglass cube, I watched manatees at eye level. I squished my nose up against it. They floated by, occasionally waving a flipper. It felt as if they were saying hi just to me. “They are so cool.” I stared back and sometimes waved. Then they’d swim away, munching on sea plants or nuzzling another manatee. I would have stayed for hours if my parents didn’t drag me away.

All of that might have just cultivated a love of marine mammals if I wasn’t a voracious learner. I read every sign in the park. From them, I learned that the manatees were endangered. I may have heard the word before that, but it was definitely the first time the concept sunk in.

And they weren’t endangered by habitat loss or something else abstract. No, the threat was much more tangible – boat propellers. In fact, I could see the animals’ mangled tails and thin scars with my own eyes.

As 9 year old, I didn’t understand why we were hurting these creatures. To say they might not exist at all just blew me away. And then, the kicker – the park signage said that we could help them by just “doing something.”

Of course, I had to do something.

When I got back to school, I launched a “Save the Manatees” campaign. It wasn’t exactly easy – I wasn’t a popular or charismatic kid at all. Although I had a bossy streak, I had never tried to convince my classmates to take action on anything. But I cared so much that I was willing to take the social risk. While I don’t think my classmates ever really bought into it, my teacher supported the idea and that was enough. In the end, my class adopted a manatee through Homosassa’s conservation program. Holding a photo of the specific manatee we adopted, for the first time I felt like I had done something bigger than myself.

I didn’t stop there. While I had always loved nature, the manatees were a catalyst for action. I was hooked on activism. I wrote my fourth grade animal report on manatees. Instead of a lemonade stand, I opened a “store” on our lawn called “Planet in Peril”. I sold pom-poms creatures I glue-gunned together. Even though my mom was the only person who bought anything, I donated my profits to environmental charities. I read and reread my copy of 50 Ways Kids Can Save the Planet until the pages started falling out. When I grew up, I was going to be a marine biologist in the summer and a famous novelist in the winter.

That didn’t happen. But I stayed committed to the environment. In high school through graduate school, I volunteered for environmental clubs. My second major was in natural resources. I spent eight years of my career telling people about plug-in electric and fuel-efficient vehicles. To raise money for climate change, I biked 300 miles from New York to DC. I even froze my ass off marching against the Keystone Pipeline while I was five months pregnant.

Through all of it, I always remembered the manatees.

When I visited Florida a few years ago, I returned to where it all started.

But the Springs weren’t how I remembered them. My memory of the park was so big and yet the map was so small. The water used to go on forever, but now it was a tiny lagoon. The whole place felt grimy. The animal enclosures seemed cramped. It was hot, sticky and buggy. Instead of being absorbed in wonder, I contemplated their funding from the state government. We even missed the manatee show.

But the most disappointing thing? The fish tank. It was so small. The plexiglass was cloudy and scratched. Hardly any manatees swam by at all.

Even when I saw manatees, they were less enchanting. They were slow, simple animals. I peered into the murky water for a just few minutes.

Some of this I can chalk up to the cynicism of adulthood. Some of it was because the facility was two decades older. The park itself admits that they may need to remove the fish bowl if they can’t get funding to fix it. But in my mind, at that time, the reason why didn’t matter. Either way, my childhood vision of the park was gone.

While I was disappointed, it didn’t ruin Homosassa for me. Despite all that, I caught a hint of my first experience. The park was a vision of green, vines looping around trees and ferns waving. It must have seemed like a jungle to my eyes accustomed to the trees of upstate New York. The manatees’ were still cute and their faces spoke of innocence. While my childhood was far from perfect, they reminded me of a time when I had less complex worries.

As flawed as it was, it was good to see Homosassa with the clarity adulthood offers. It made me realize how important supporting these places are. Without public support for the park, I would have never had my first experience there so long ago.

In fact, I hope to bring my two young sons there someday. We already talk about nature all of the time, from the acorns in the trees to the groundhog under our deck. Maybe seeing it with them will help me rekindle my enchantment. Maybe it won’t – maybe they’ll hate it! But even if it isn’t Homosassa itself they love, I hope they find an ecological niche where they see how they fit into the wider world.

Because while my love affair with Homosassa and its manatees has dwindled, my passion for the environment hasn’t. I’ll always be grateful to Homosassa for that gift.

For more personal essays about parenting and environmentalism, check out Keeping the Faith as a Mom Even When the Future Seems Dark. If you want to join a group of our parents interested in environmental issues, be sure to join our Green and Sustainable Parenting group on Facebook!