Annie's backyard is maybe thirty feet deep—standard for Victorian cottages packed close together. The maple tree's been there longer than the house, roots buckling the ground, branches spreading shade over half the yard.

The bench sits underneath, simple wood, weathered gray. Annie didn't build a formal garden—no stone paths or fountain or carefully planned landscaping. She just cleared some weeds, scattered wildflower seeds, arranged river stones in a circle. "For intention," she said, though I'm not sure what that means.

I found her there on a Tuesday morning, sitting quiet, eyes closed, face turned toward filtered sunlight. I almost left. But she opened her eyes, smiled, patted the bench. "Sit."

I sat. We didn't talk. Just existed in that space—morning light, bird sounds, leaves moving overhead. My mind churned with to-do lists and worries. Annie's face stayed peaceful. How did she do that?

Meditation isn't about clearing your mind. It's about being okay with the chaos while you sit there anyway. —  Annie Chen

"I'm bad at this," I said eventually. "My brain won't stop."

"Neither will mine," Annie said. "That's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"Showing up. Sitting. Noticing." She gestured around—tree, bench, stones, sky. "You're here. That's enough."

Annie sits there most mornings. Twenty minutes, sometimes less. No timer, no app, no guided meditation voice telling her to breathe. Just sitting on a bench her neighbors threw away, under a tree that's been growing for a hundred years, in a backyard that barely qualifies as a garden.

Other people started showing up. Sarah before yoga. Tom between work calls. Elena when the pottery studio gets too intense. The bench fits two people comfortably, three if you squeeze. We take turns, share space, sometimes sit together in awkward silence.

"Is this official?" Maya asked one morning, finding three of us already there. "Like, should we have a schedule?"

"It's a bench," Annie said. "Just sit if it's empty. Keep walking if it's not."

That informal system works. No rules, no ownership. Just a shared space anyone can use for whatever they need—meditation, thinking, crying, existing. Bill sits there reading the paper. Jacob sits there on phone calls. Rachel sat there after her breakup, stayed two hours, came back okay.

Annie's "meditation garden" isn't formal or fancy or Instagram-worthy. It's a rescued bench under a tree, some flowers growing wild, river stones marking nothing in particular. But it's become sacred anyway—not religious sacred, just humanly sacred. A place set apart for being still in lives that don't stop.

Yesterday I sat there at 6 AM, watching sunrise light filter through maple leaves, drinking coffee, trying to quiet the noise in my head. Didn't work. Brain still churned. But I sat anyway, and somehow that felt like accomplishment enough.

Annie's right. Showing up is the point. The bench doesn't judge. The tree doesn't care if you're good at meditation or terrible at quieting your mind. You just sit there, under leaves, on wood, surrounded by wildflowers that grow without anyone tending them.

That's the whole garden—permission to be still, space to try, acceptance of whatever happens when you sit down and attempt peace in a ordinary backyard behind a Victorian cottage in Appalachia.

The bench is there if you need it. Most of us do, eventually. Annie knew that when she dragged it home from someone's trash pile. We all need a place to sit. She gave us one.

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