It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.
What are you thankful for today?
This land is lush. In August, blackberries. In September, tuna. And now, it's mushroom season.
I live in mushroom country — 70 inches of rain each year makes rich, damp, mushroom earth — and I've turned forager. And like most things in life, it's not the goal but the process that satisfies.
Here, where the forest meets the sea, the woods are thick, immediate. The other evening, at the end of a long day at work, we hike in. For chanterelles — the craggly, coveted fungi with a golden hue.
In just minutes we are surrounded by towering fir and cedar, by old-growth and new moss. Autumn's low-angle sun slices through silhouetted limbs. Hiking up the bank, the air rustles low and slow. My boots crack twigs, thighs brush fern, bird wings flap in the distance. It's this green, this reverent hush, this serene suspension — it is all this I wish to harvest and hold.
I like mushrooms okay, but mostly I like the hunt.
Mushrooms
And God so pleased with their silence
He grants them teeth and tongues.
Like us.
How long have you been gone?
A child’s hot tears on my bare arms.