'Even the rocks here seem more zen than I am.'

A few steps further led me to a Zen garden—a space so deliberate it felt like stepping into an ancient thought. The gravel was raked into perfect concentric circles around the stones as if someone had frozen the ripples of a pond in time. I stood there, unsure whether to admire it or disturb it with my presence. The jacaranda tree nearby added a burst of color to the otherwise muted tones, its blossoms falling lazily onto the gravel like nature’s own punctuation. A wooden wall framed one side of the garden, its simplicity grounding the scene in quiet elegance. I couldn’t help but wonder if the stones had been placed randomly or if they held some secret geometry I wasn’t privy to.