🌱 The Pond Story: A Search into Why Not
Day One: Not War, Just Water
“On the first day of his 71st year, a man did not build a wall, dig a bunker, or throw a tantrum. He shaped the earth with his hands into a quiet figure eight and let the goldfish swim.”
And so began the Pond Incident of 2025 — a tale of gentle landscaping and institutional rigidity. What I created was no fortress, no hazard, no rebellion… but try telling that to an HOA board.
🧱 What Was Built (and What Wasn’t)
- A 3.2-meter (10.5 ft) long figure-8-shaped pond
- Widths ranging 15 cm to 1 meter (6 inches to 3+ feet)
- Depths gently varying 6 to 24 inches (15 to 60 cm)
- 300–360 gallons total water volume — about two bathtubs worth of trouble
🌄 The Design:
- Left side: A 24-inch-high hill sculpted from pond soil, terraced with plantings and topped by a small waterfall.
- Right side: A 12-inch-high hill, softly contoured and planted with care — echoing balance, not disruption.
- The pond sits below patio grade, does not encroach on pathways, and poses no drainage or erosion threat.
- Fully lined, self-contained, and entirely reversible — though one might ask, why would anyone want to reverse peace?
📸 What You See (But They Couldn’t)
- Goldfish meandering through calm water.
- Hills alive with foliage and the sound of trickling water.
- Stones laid with intention. Plantings with care. Sky wide open.
- Nothing rising above the peace. Only the bureaucracy seemed disturbed.
No fences broken. No neighbors disturbed. No loud pumps, neon lights, or gnomes with attitudes.
Just me, the water, and a world trying to remember how to listen.
❓So… Why Not?
Why can’t we live by the Golden Rule?
Why can’t a quiet garden, born from grief and crafted with care, simply be allowed to exist?
Why must control override compassion?
Because we have built systems to govern land, but not to understand people.
Because some committees are faster to file violations than to ask questions.
Because we still mistake order for justice, and compliance for character.
The koi may be goldfish. The pond may be shallow. But the message — and the resistance — runs deep.
If you’re asking yourself “Why not?” — keep asking.
Sometimes, the answer is buried just beneath the surface of a peaceful little pond.
