What do you want to be when you are grown up?

I never knew how to answer this question, not as a child nor as a grown-up. As a child, I couldn't rep my head around stereotypes, and I refused to put people into a box - I simply didn't understand how the classification of a group works as my focus was on identifying uniqueness in each one.

I did understand that a group of a certain age is more likely to have similar interests, but I refused to put them into a box as every single one stands for a unique person.

I believed that there would have to be an endless number of boxes to put people in, and this entire concept didn't make any sense to me as each one would have to have a unique box. A Firefighter was not only a Firefighter but also a father, painter, comedian, writer and so on. That mindset made it impossible for me to choose a particular job, as I saw more than one thing in each individual.

So, back to the question, or are we looking for the answers here?

Well, I definitely didn't want to be a firefighter - not a hairdresser or a housewife! I couldn't be one thing! I wanted to be free like a bird, spread my wings, and fly wherever I liked; the internet wasn't easily accessible back then, so I didn't know much about the world besides the view things we learned in school about other cultures and from books. We didn't often go to the library when I was a child; I also didn't like it there as it was quiet and forbidden to talk. Only whispering was allowed, which didn't align with me well.

But my grandpa's books were plenty, mostly novels and geography books.

His favourite place to read was in an old leather armchair in front of the window with a little cafe table that doubled as a bookshelf, full to the brim of atlases and roadmaps.

Each time someone had been looking for a route to go from A to B, my grandpa would sit down, take one of his books out, and map the route by flipping pages back and forth. That was something I looked up to, and that was something I wanted to do! I may have been 10 or 11 years old then.

I flipped through those pages- I followed the streets with my pointing finger to see where the roads lead, trying to find the best road to see the world. I was mapping my way through many pages, and of course, I got lost, but I wanted to know more about those places from his books.

First of all, I wanted to know how to get there and what the people are like. What about the weather? Do we speak the same language? How do they live, and how do their houses look? Do they have to go to school? What do they eat for dinner, do they have to finish their plate, do they know honey, and do they have pets? If so, what kind of pets?

Fast forward to today: I am standing in the garden. It's the beginning of summer - the weather is warm and the sun pleasing. I am standing in front of 6 square meters of my "summer project". The area is overgrown with a good mix of plants, but the bamboo grows significantly faster than any other plant here.

So, I am digging to create a pleasant area to set up a greenhouse for my favourite Veggies.

I am exhaling, holding a bamboo root 1 meter in length in my hand. I must admit that the root system/anatomy of the running bamboo is pretty impressive, just like the fact that bamboo is the fastest-growing plant.

I am taking my time to inspect the root carefully.

I follow the Rhizome, and it reminds me of how I followed the maps with my pointing finger as a child. I take a picture of the root and add to the description, "I guess that's growth at its finest!"

That's what I want to be: A growing progress with sprouts and shoots in all directions, and without even realizing it in the first place, I have become what I used to dream about.