After years of looking for the perfect home, my friend Jack recently bought his dream house. The consummate host, Jack and his partner Tom love throwing lavish sit-down dinners and wanted a house with a backyard they could transform into a garden oasis.
The previous owner, a widowed retiree with a green thumb and plenty of time on her hands, had done most of the work for them. Just look at that fire pit with the gorgeous Adirondack chairs. Just listen to the burbling koi pond, afloat with water lilies. Just smell the lavender and basil planted in the chef’s garden. Jack and Tom bought an antique teak table, strung white Edison lights in the sturdy old oak tree, invited people over for sunset cocktails. Their dream was a perfect reality.
Except for that damn bamboo. Many decades prior, the widow had planted phyllostachys aurea, a type of running bamboo (though Jack only ever called it that damn bamboo) along the back fence as a privacy screen. Bamboo, evidently beloved by the widow for its fast-growing ability, was abhorred by Jack, as it tends to become invasive in short order. This bamboo was easily 15 feet tall and, Jack explained, when it reaches its full height, might choose to grow underground instead, shooting out rhizomes (the part of the root system that actually spreads) under his patio or house foundation.
“Plus, it’s just ugly,” Jack sniffed over his wine glass, as the lightning bugs started to glow and the crickets tuned their instruments. He sighed melodramatically. “I really, really hate that damn bamboo.”
I thought no more about the bamboo until I saw a picture of Jack’s backyard after a recent Kentucky storm. Pelting hail and gale-force winds had ripped the giant oak tree from the ground, toppling it onto the dining table and a corner of the house. Shingles and limbs lay askew, the table splintered under the weight of the massive tree. Plants and flowers were uprooted, the koi pond flooded and murky with silt.
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But, wouldn’t you know it, that damn bamboo survived completely unharmed. It was strong, like the oak, but also flexible, which the tree was not. The bamboo simply absorbed the energy of the storm without succumbing to it.
This is a well-worn analogy. Be like bamboo. Bend so you don’t break. Buddha said it, Bruce Lee said it, every yoga teacher I have ever known trots it out on the reg. And I don’t disagree. But I don’t think that is why that damn bamboo survived.
It survived because of its root system. Bamboo sends more energy toward building a strong and stable foundational root system than it does toward growing toward the sun. It lays the groundwork if you will, so that when the storms blow, it’s prepared. It’s resilience in action.
It got me thinking about my own foundation. My character, my values, my integrity. My family and my chosen friends. My habits and my natural skills. It’s taken me five decades to build this strong root system. Without it, the storms of my life – and there have been a few in the last few years – would topple me.
With the backyard a mess anyway, Jack had landscapers come in and rip out that damn bamboo. And would you believe it? Its root system had spread across the backyard, under the driveway, and into two neighboring lots. Invasive, sure. But you gotta admire that resilience.
