The Lessons of Mushrooms

I’ve been spending more time in the forest since the quarantine began. I live in an apartment complex that is in walking distance to a patch of woods that surrounds a local river, which is a great privilege I do not take for granted. It has been raining a lot this April and morels are in season for a little longer. So, I have been venturing to the woods at least once a week to look for them (and also to collect garlic mustard - an introduced species that grows like wild around here). Just walking and getting my body moving has been essential to my mental health.

Also, I have been working on creating a hidden section to this site to house some of my recipes that I have been creating under the name The Radish Room (Instagram, Facebook) since 2017. You can find the recipes here: katcoolahan.com/theradishroom. I am slowly typing up my handwritten notes and getting good photos of favorite meals to share with the world. One dish that has worked particularly well with foraged ingredients is my sunflower pesto recipe. I substitute garlic mustard for the basil and use that as a sauce for pasta, with chickpeas and sautéed peppers and morels.

Foraging brings me a lot of joy. The hours spent in the woods forgetting about the outside world, then the hours spent in the kitchen remembering nature. Getting low to the ground looking for mushrooms changes my perspective, helps me to better appreciate the smaller aspects of the forest and the interconnectedness of the ecosystem.

This pandemic has brought joy and purpose to the forefront of my consciousness in a big way. The joys in my life now “pop” with a new brilliance. Yes, there has been sadness and despair and anxiety too. But those also illuminate the joy in a way. Because when I contemplate how I want to spend my limited time here, writing and being in nature stand out more than ever. Both of these activities are ways that I connect: to other people and to the natural world. I value connection, networks, diversity. I am finding new ways to connect that I never considered before, like online writing classes and zoom calls.

In many ways, I feel life has prepared me in its own way for this global health crisis. I spent the greater part of my adult life studying edible plants and the patterns of nature, as well as mindfulness and healing techniques to deal with depression and anxiety. I trained in yoga and reiki, I learned to cook and how to eat really well at home. I have (for the most part) eased away from alcohol and others ways of numbing out to pain. I have lost many loved ones, including a parent and a parent-in-law. Just this last year, my spouse and I lost three family members within a few months of each another. The year 2019 was, by far, the hardest of my life so far … and then in 2020 we all get hit with a global pandemic. For much of this past year, I could not understand how that kind of compounding loss ever could serve me, how it could teach me anything other than that I needed to endure and just keep living when things felt utterly hopeless. With each death, though, I realize that my grief evolves a little. I have gotten better at accepting life’s impermanence and moving with (instead of fighting against) the current reality. This has also illuminated joy in my life. I can be more present with my life when I live in this acceptance. I am by no means perfect in grief. Not even close. Grief answers to no one and will do what it pleases, after all. But, I do feel more prepared than before to deal with whatever life will throw our way next. I do want to mention that I also have the incredible privilege in this pandemic of not being in survival mode, worrying about a paycheck or housing or groceries or any other basic needs. Although this would not have been the case for me for most of my adult life, which is mostly a matter of timing, I have had more mental space and bandwidth to process and think. As Yuval Noah Harari so aptly says, “thinking about the big picture is a relatively rare luxury.”

Most of my life, I also believed that I was flawed because I could never just be one thing … I worked many jobs across many fields (environmental, fundraising, accounting, retail) and cultivated deep interests in several areas (nature/science, writing/communication, wellness/healing). I almost never felt adequate in the world and often felt like a failure for not being able to just put my head down and commit. But, now, I am seeing clearly how these aspects of myself converge to serve me (and thus help to serve others). Now, more than ever, I know that I was not put here on earth for the status quo. I am here to help build something new. In these words is where my interests merge, art is where they come together.

Mushroom hunting is a lot like life in this way. Sometimes I need to be patient to wait for the lesson. I need to get down low to the ground and humble myself to change my perspective. There is a season for everything in life. When the season is over it is time to let go and begin something new.

Tough Days and Little Joys

Just a little update (in the spirit of practice) from a walk today and beyond...

Yesterday was a tough day. This past winter, I applied to 5 MFA programs in creative writing. Those who know this already, know how much work and time I put into these applications and how excited I have been for the prospect of these programs. Well, yesterday I got my 4th rejection. I'm expecting the 5th to come any day now. But, maybe there is some semblance of hope still? Who knows really... Anyway, I did a lot of my grieving yesterday in preparation for that 5th decision (my top school). It may seem trivial right now as things are the way they are. But, grief is grief and it will not be told what to do. So, I just went with it and let the sadness take over for a little while.

Today I woke up sad af to still feel sad af but determined to get out for a walk at some point. I'm glad I did make it out. Something that brings me a lot of joy is watching the incremental changes in the season. Also, knowing in these uncertain times that there is food growing everywhere in suburban Maryland is a great comfort. Many of them are "weeds" - talk about a reframing! There was an abundance of chickweed, dandelion, dead nettle, wild garlic, garlic mustard, and speedwell to be spotted today.

On the walk, I also noticed that the magnolias have bloomed and their smell is in full force. Just a few days ago the flowers of this same tree were still tight and torpedoed. This knowledge brought a lightness, it made the days inside feel less monotonous now having proof that nature really is still marching on day by day outside. I think I may also have found a dawn redwood tree planted in someone's yard. I almost jumped back at the bark in excitement when I saw it because it looked SO west coast and nostalgic for an ecosystem I dearly miss - a very exciting find. This tree is another one I can monitor as it begins to regrow (they are one of the few deciduous conifers to they lose their needles each winter). Little joys, little joys. It's important to hold onto them now and always.

I am happy to (seemingly) be crawling out of that awful mini depression. Walks really help. I am cherishing them. And I am cherishing you too if you are reading this <3 Thank you.

I Took a Walk

I took a walk to clear my mind, to stretch my legs. A simple stroll turned into a game of six-feet-between-strangers and then the concept of a walk changed forever. At first, I wasn’t sure how to navigate this new world.

Then, I found myself stepping more on the earth instead of the pavement. My eyes searched the forest for signs of Spring, signs of food and medicine. Two legs carried me past a playground covered in caution tape, led me to a stream. I sat in the eroded valley bed, a bowl, a womb, watching water trickling by. No matter what is happening with us humans, water will still flow downstream.

Taking a path I’ve never taken led me to a local school. I found the grounds of the football stadium dotted with people moving their bodies, far from one another but closer to themselves. Two cars in the parking lot drove with teenagers behind the wheel, practicing for that undetermined time when the DMV will again open. As I rounded the side corner of the school to face the front, I was greeted by a sweetgum tree, spikey balls radiating out onto the earth from a nucleus of twisted roots. There was a nostalgia to this moment, something I remembered from long ago.

I realized that almost no one I saw had their face to a screen, they had orchestrated their presence and time here precisely to be far away from smartphones filled with scary news. There was this glimpse of the 1990s on that walk that flashed before me. But, there was also something else, something wordless, vast and infinite, something I could not yet describe. Something new.