out of nothing, metamorphosis

There was a lone bamboo reed growing in my backyard, right next to the window by my dining table. I can’t remember how or when it started growing there. I’ve lived here for two years and I only just noticed it about a month ago.

Since I started working from home, I’ve noticed a few things about my place that I’ve never noticed before. There’s a chip in the paint on my wall by the cat tree in the corner, and every time I glance there I think it’s a bug, and every time my cheeks get a little bit hot. I never hung up my college diploma, even though I caved and bought the overpriced collegiate frame. It just sits on the floor collecting a light layer of dust, leaning against the naked wall that will one day be its home, whenever I can muster up enough energy, or will, to hammer in the nail. I don’t own a plunger, and if I do, I have no idea where it is. Each day it seems there’s a new discovery to be made from within these four walls. I took mental notes of each one to add to my ever-growing list of things I should fix but probably won’t. Instead I focused my interest on the solitary bamboo reed growing just outside my window.

I can’t remember what day it was, as these days tend to blur together and in between themselves. But I do remember it was one of the days when I was drinking my espresso black rather than in an iced latte, as I do currently. I sat down to begin my workday at my dining table. The weather was getting warm, and I wanted to be by the window to steal a few rays of sun from outside.

To be honest, when I first noticed it, I didn’t know it was bamboo. I thought it was just some generic species of the backyard weed. It was still short and thin at this point, and its leaves were sparse. Its stem was a sallow yellow more so than green. It wasn’t until it started to grow taller and more sturdy as it matured that I understood it was not the average backyard weed.

It obstructed the view from the window unapologetically. Its leaves quivered constantly, even when the grass was still, straining to grow taller and stronger. And it was fast in its growth. It raced up the window and toward the sun recklessly and willfully.

One morning, after volleying between my laptop screen and my phone screen, my eyes landed on it. It reached halfway up the window. That same evening, it was three-quarters to the top. I bet if I had sat in the window and watched it, like my cats often did, I’d be able to witness it lurch upward.

It became a sort of game, or competition. How tall would it get in a week, in a month, in a year? I imagined it becoming as tall as the palm trees that lined my neighborhood. Tall enough for the whole city to see and wonder, “Is that a palm tree with no palms? A palmless palm tree? Is that even a tree? Or maybe it’s just a pole?”

I wondered if I should tend to it at all, maybe water it, to help it grow. But it seemed to be doing just fine on its own. By the end of the month, it was close to six feet tall.

It was early Friday morning and I was on a conference call seated at my desk which faced the window, gulping my iced latte in an attempt to stay awake. The gardener arrived, just as he does every Friday morning, prefaced by the sound of his leaf blower. He began blowing the dead crinkled leaves into a neat pile in the middle of the yard, and then he paused looking in the direction of the bamboo. He trudged his muddy boots across the yard and planted himself right in front of my window. Did he see me and want to talk to me? I wrestled with whether to wave or if I’d just look awkward.

He pushed his leaf blower out of the way for a moment as he grabbed hold of the bamboo. I instinctively pushed myself halfway out of my chair, hovered above the cushion, and paused. Between the people on the conference call droning on and the leaf blower whirring violently, it was too loud for my throat to utter a noise. If it did, not even I could hear it.

My eyes zeroed in on his hands as they pulled and pulled the reed from the ground. He re-adjusted his feet to have more leverage--the roots must have been stronger than he anticipated. I don’t think he saw me sitting inside, as I’m sure he would have stopped if he’d seen my face. But he yanked and yanked, ripping the bamboo from its roots again and again until it finally relinquished its hold and gave way to the gardener’s will. He let out a grunting sigh, as if he’d just got done lifting a heavy set of weights at the gym, and he went back around to the front yard, I presume to toss it in the green trash can. He proceeded as usual with collecting the dead leaves and watering the plants.

I emptied the air I’d been holding in my lungs with one short, silent laugh. He was only doing his job. He should honestly receive a raise for working so hard and meticulously. It was just a weed.

Someone was asking for my attention to something on the conference call. I wrangled myself back inside and stuttered before apologetically asking them to repeat the question. My focus was split for the remainder of the hour until the call was over and I could properly mourn the loss of the bamboo.

I’d grown so accustomed to its stem that asymmetrically framed the view from my window. Now it was gone, and the backyard looked like a foreign place to me.

Maybe it was a good thing, I thought. Maybe now I could focus on hanging my diploma, or buying a plunger. Maybe I could exercise more than once every two weeks, or write about things more important than a random plant in my yard. But when the enormity of it all would smother me; when the uncertainty of next week, next month, next year would sink in; when the rage over the general lack of human empathy crippled me, I found an ounce of solace in being able to look outside my window and see something flourishing.

I was stirring my iced latte one weekend morning, wondering if I should switch back to black espresso, when it caught my eye. The view from the window had been bare from anything for a couple of weeks now, but today something was peeking out from the bottom of the pane.

I don’t know how its roots survived but they did. There it was, sprouting delicately from the ground. The wind washed over me through the open window and left goosebumps all over my skin in its wake. The leaves quivered, as if they were waving a lively hello.

This time, it is unmistakably bamboo, not a generic weed. Its stem is smooth and glistens in the sunlight. Its leaves are long and slender, an almost unnaturally fluorescent green. Even at night, they seem to glow.

In its second life, it grows much more slowly. Once unapologetic in the space it consumed, it is now more careful, yielding. Part of me wishes it could resume its old merciless ways of growing. But it will never be allowed to reach its full potential in a garden as small and well-manicured as the one outside my window.

So it takes its time, doesn’t work so hard, savors the sunshine and its own beauty.

I just hope it remembers what it is capable of.

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I played this and the entire Phoebe Bridgers discography on repeat while writing: