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.

The Coming Shift?

There is a patch of woods behind the apartments where I live, not even 100-foot wide. I can see clear across the patch on a winter’s day, down to a busy suburban road and a driveway that loops round a community pool. Black walnut trees comprise a decent stretch of the woods. There are a few cherry tree stragglers. Rosa multiflora carpets the understory, generally keeping human feet out. Garlic mustard and dandelions began sprouting along the edges this spring, a welcome sign to me of available food.

This patch of woods, like many in urban and suburban Maryland, has been a dumping grounds for humans for decades. One day, fed up and overwhelmed with anxiety in early-pandemic times, I went out to fill what I could of an industrial trash bag.

The day I decided to tackle the trash was the day after I saw a family of rabbits for the first time hopping about the thickets. My anger got the best of me. Even though I was still nursing a chronic pain flareup, I let my hands meet the earth again in an attempt to do something, be somebody else other than a person who manages an inconvenient disease. I get so fed up with the pain sometimes. More than actually being in pain, I get angry at how it (and fatigue) constantly sideline my life. Even prior to pandemic-living, I have had my share of “zero” days spent inside. You could say, I guess, that I have had some pandemic practice.

Over the years, picking up trash has become somewhat of a prayer for me – it can be an incredibly mindful activity and opportunity for compassion. It also eases my anxiety. It makes me feel useful, which I must admit is one of my most favorite things in life to feel. If I get into an especially good headspace, when I feel myself getting too angry or attached to the stories in my head about the people who made this mess, I can pause and channel that anger into action. I can also silence the attachment I get to retrieving some particular piece of garbage I really want to pick up. The truth is not all pieces of garbage are salvageable. There are pieces too embedded in the soil, too large for my trash bag, bits of plastic (bags mostly) torn up into impossibly small pieces, items too tangled up in the thickets. The perfectionist in me hates to leave them behind. But, in these instances, I often sacrifice quality for quantity.

Among the trash that particular day, I found several decade-old beer cans, contractor waste like spray cans and landscaping trash bags, tiger-print underwear (a thong), blunt wrappers, food wrappers, and dented plastic ball-pit toys in a rainbow of colors that presumably rolled down the hill from some apartment-dwelling child.

In the time since I cleaned up what I could of that small patch of woods, I’ve seen two new animals roaming around in the brush – an opossum and a groundhog. Yesterday, I watched the groundhog get really brave and inch its way up to the edge to gobble up a fresh, bright dandelion flower. I know seeing the two of them is more a testament to the changing season (and the always-home-now situation we have ourselves in) than it is to the absence of trash. But, there is a small part of me that feels extra useful knowing that it made the space a little cleaner for them too.

There is this quote that is circling around the internet right now that says “In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.”

On one of my walks last week, I was feeling particularly contemplative and philosophical about the trash (but not picking it up). I thought about how many of the familiar brands I see strewn amongst the edges of the forest might no longer be in business if the economy really tanks. Every piece of trash in the woods becomes an artifact and reminder from a forgotten time.

I’ve seen more folks than ever before spending time out in the woods. People are creating a new future in their choices to get back in touch with nature. I witnessed two people come out with garbage bags to that same patch of woods since my own cleanup almost a month ago. I don’t credit myself in the least for this, as I highly doubt people even saw me doing it. As I’ve driven around doing essential errands like grocery shopping, I am seeing more people picking up trash, walking, stopping to smell the flowers. I believe that something may be shifting in the way we collectively regard nature … do you feel it too?

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.

A Beautiful Mess

I left my house Friday and drove around for the first time in a couple weeks. I was hoping to find a trail to walk in the woods for a little bit. I miss the trees, the silence and loving embrace of nature. We are blessed to have balconies in our apartment, but the noises of traffic and trash in the woods are often all I can focus on when I'm trying to sit in the sunshine.

I drove to a few trailheads that I knew well. All of them were too crowded with cars. While driving, I saw people outside shopping, large groups playing basketball, children at playgrounds... I also saw the signs on the highway telling people to stay home and an elder picking up trash along the side of a busy street. I ended up at my old Elementary School because I knew there was a patch of woods and also lots of open space. I saw even more people playing basketball. I also saw kids on bikes keeping their distance and teachers wheeling an aquarium cart to their car to save their class pet.

While I sat in the woods, it was hard not to notice the mess, the trash, to want to fix it, to be angry. In particular, there was a plastic bottle whose wrapper read "tropical paradise" on it that seemed to taunt a little extra. It was hard not to get distracted by the awful din of I-95 as it echoed up from the valley. I thought about how I had spent so much of my childhood at that school with those sounds of traffic, so extra loud in the winter when most of the trees were barren of leaves. I walked the back of the field and visited the trees that were planted using the planting plan I created when I worked for the County. I thought about how each species was chosen by me and in what order and hoped that I chose well. I remembered how I used to look out across that valley past the traffic and toward the college I would one day attend, to study environmental science. I thought about how I planned most of my life to leave this place and I did. But now here I am again about to hunker down for an indeterminate amount of time. And how it cannot be any other way.

I have followed this virus very closely since it first arose in Wuhan. I have been consulting the science daily and making logical decisions based on data and what epidemiologists recommend. Because of this, I bought extra food with each trip to the store for my family weeks before the shelves at the grocery store started running low. I haven't stockpiled. I have isolated and tried to make choices that are best for my community, for humanity. I have practiced the mindfulness techniques I learned over the past ten years to get myself into a good head space. I have allowed myself to feel fear, but tried my hardest not to let it overwhelm me.

I have also been reading and listening to a lot of spiritual takes on what is happening right now with COVID-19. Spiritually, we may be dealing with how we can collectively release fear and illusion. We need to stare the truth in the face and find new ways to communicate with each other. We need new paradigms, systems, and ideas for how we heal our relationship to the earth. Of all of the species that have ever existed on earth, 99.9% of them are now extinct. We are but a blip in the timeline of the earth's history. I want to be very clear that humans are NOT killing the earth with climate change, we are killing ourselves. The earth will be here long after humans are gone. Collectively, this virus is showing us just that.

I love humans and humanity. I love the ways we are good to one another and take care of one another. I love how we fight back against oppression and oppressors and demand better, demand justice, demand truth. I love how we tell stories and give each other hope.

And yet.... any yet... right now I am STRUGGLING with others. I am struggling with myself. I want to do more. Be more. I want others to care. I am tired, so tired, of screaming into the void.

I believe that a lot of the problems and toxic systems that exist in the world are inheritances. They are what we are given as children, what we are taught, but not what we need to accept. We can and must do the work to first acknowledge and then to dismantle the hierarchical power structures that oppress and deny our connectedness. There are so many who have been/are doing this work already and who are holding new visions of how we can show up for each other and for the planet. It gives me such hope.

I don't know what the future holds. I believe everything, life as we know it, especially in the United States, is going to fundamentally change forever. I don't believe in "all good, everything is better, back to the way it was before." There will always be hardships, loss, suffering. But, there will also always be love, truth, and kindness. Life is messy, humanity is messy.

I just hope we can more fiercely take care of one another.