There is a rainforest in my bathroom, and if you do not agree with me, I invite you to join me. Knock on my door, I will gladly let you into my 333 square-foot studio apartment--yes, it’s that tiny. Come this way, have a seat on my Cheeto-encrusted futon. If you look closely under the mini-fridge and between the trashcan, you may be able to find a wild cockroach in its natural habitat. Please don’t scream! He was here before I moved in, and if I’m being honest, I’m not sure how to get him to leave. This is his land. Back to the rainforest; I would like for you to close your eyes. Please, breathe deeply.
Now, just listen. It shouldn’t take more than a minute for you to understand. If you haven’t opened the door to my bathroom, you should be able to envision a lagoon after a midday shower. Listen closer and you’ll be able to hear the Cicadas buzzing. Begin picturing the overgrown mangroves knotting their roots throughout the swampy abyss and see the bright green frogs humming on a log while dragonflies play in the sunshine. Careful, though, we’re in snake territory, and a Boa constrictor is lurking in the grove of that tree.
Of course, when you actually enter the bathroom, you will find that there are no banana slugs, no carnivorous amphibians, no tropical climate. But thanks to the extremely thin walls separating bedroom and lavatory, pipes that echo water splashes all day long, and a broken--read: haunted--toilet that flushes itself every fifteen minutes on the dot, I made you believe, even if only for a second, that I live next door to the Amazon. But what was the point in forcing you to sit with your eyes shut for 5 minutes and listen to a mildewed shower drain itself?
For so long, we have allowed for our imagination to go repressed, and to see nothing further than social media on the screen in front of us, letting jealousy be planted in our bellies. It sits, forms roots, and eventually crawls up our chests, attacking our hearts, invading our minds, and making war with our tongues. A force so powerful that we have been led to idealize the complicated and forgo the simplicity of our own minds. This jealousy allows for us to crawl under covers, put up doors and brick walls only to be entered upon by those willing to pay a price, set up monsters as gatekeepers and forget that while we may not get as many Instagram likes as we had hoped or may not be able to afford the luxuries of our classmates now idealized as kings and queens, there is something electric stirring in our dungeons.
We have been taught that after graduating elementary school, creativity has no practical use. We sit in rows alphabetically, and follow monotonous schedules, while years of dressing up like princesses and slaying dragons slip through every crevice of our brand new grownup brains. We forget that we can create universes if only we can change our perception and let wonder take over. These tales we write, the songs we sing, the vehicles we design, the discoveries we make, the adventures we will pursue, are all sitting barricaded behind walls of jealousy for those who have this thing or that thing, that we forget about the world sitting just outside our tear-stained comforters.
So, I encourage you to tear down your walls of jealousy and see past the phone screens. Sick the Calvary on your monsters. Because while it is so easy to forget about the spark of wonder about the world, I bet if you listen hard enough, you have a rainforest in your bathroom too.
