My Life and Mushrooms

Morels. If you know, you know. Those delectable little mushrooms call out to my wife Laura and I every spring from southern facing forest slopes and damp creek beds after hard rains when it is cool both day and night. The day’s high was sixty-nine degrees after a thunderstorm blew through while the previous night only dropped as low as fifty-seven, making it an ideal day for shroom hunting. Waking early, we fixed ourselves a huge breakfast consisting of French toast and sausage links with some fresh fruit and, of course, piping hot coffee. Excited is an understatement for how we feel about this activity. We met on an online chat forum when I was starting out in the hobby. We started to privately text each other, which led to phone calls that lasted hours. After weeks of getting to know one another and exchanging witty banter, we decided to meet in person for breakfast then a little mushroom hunting afterwards. There hasn’t been a spring since then that we have broken the tradition of celebrating the day we formally met with a big breakfast and a mushroom hunt.

Last year our traditional hunting area was dry. Each year prior seemed to yield less. So, we were trying a new area. We were heading into one of the state parks where we ventured off the beaten path to see what we could find. It was a few miles upstream from the creek that we normally hunted by, so we were very optimistic that the area would produce a high yield. It would just take some looking, and a lot of hiking. In fact, we hiked nearly three and a half miles before reaching the creek, just outside the park borders. The creek ran west to east, and we were on the south side. We had to find a shallow spot to cross the icy water to search that south facing slope, so we headed up stream a bit. Another half mile hike and we found an area where the water was just a couple inches, saving us from having to completely submerge our feet in the water, and we crossed sides. It didn’t take long before Laura found her first grouping of mushrooms under an Elm tree.

“Peter, you have to come see this,” she called to me jubilantly.

I hurried in the direction of her voice, excited to see what she had discovered. Cupped in her dainty hands was a Morel with a head on it as big as my fist. At six-foot-seven I have a pretty big fist. It looked like a sponge with a handle. The average size of a Morel is two to four inches. This one was at least six. That was the largest of the grouping, but the rest of them were still larger than your average sized Morel. We swept the area, continuing to follow the creek in a westward direction, filling our baskets as we went. We were giddy like children gathering eggs on Easter morning. The anticipation of the search and the rush of the find brought out the child in us. Each find was a celebration of laughter and affection. We were having so much fun we didn’t notice the storm moving in until there was a violent gust of wind, and the day went dim.

Laura looks at her arm then up at me. “I just felt a rain drop.”

Just then one splashed on my head. “Yeah, me too. Let’s head back.”

We crossed the creek and lightning flashed, followed by thunder. Heaven opened up in that moment and wept down upon us. We ran into the woods, hoping the canopy of newly budding trees would shield us from the rain. No such luck. It was a heavy and steady rain, soaking us to the bone instantly. We made a V-line in the direction of the park’s parking lot. The forest floor was covered with all sorts of obstacles - fallen branches, dead leaves, rocks, stumps. It was an exposed root, like the hand of the living dead reaching up from the grave, that twisted my ankle and brought me crashing down into the mud and debris. Laura’s little five-five frame did the best it could to support some of my weight, but we were moving slowly, and she was getting tired quickly. We sat for a moment to catch our breath. The rain dripped from our noses like leaky faucets and our hair was matted flat against our heads. Our clothes were soaked, and I could see Laura shivering, her teeth chattering. I started scanning the area, hoping to find a drier place to wait out the storm. That’s when Laura spotted it off in the distance. It was hardly noticeable. An old shack, maybe a hunter’s cabin, built of slat wood with a rock chimney. Once again, Laura crawled under my arm and bared my weight as we headed for shelter.

Luckily the cabin was open. The little one room building was tidy, but not necessarily clean. Someone used it, but not that often was my guess. There were shelves with cannisters and a large pot that looked like a witch’s cauldron in the corner. A dirty old mattress lay on the floor near the fireplace. A small table sat under the window. Firewood and kindling were stacked neatly next to the fireplace along with a basket of dry leaves and a flint. I got us a fire started and reclined in front to rest my ankle. Laura snuggled up to me in between my legs. We sat there listening to the soothing sounds of the fire crackling and the rain pouring while we dried. I watched the fire dance, my wife’s gentle breathing lulling me into a deep state of relaxation.

“I wish we could stay here forever,” I say breaking the silence. “Just like this, the two of us, no work, no bills, no worries.”

Laura snuggled in deeper. By her breathing I could tell she was about to doze off when the door swung open with a bang. Standing in the doorway was an old woman, smaller than Laura, hunched over. She was cloaked in sackcloth. Her hair was gray, long, and thin. One eye was cloud white, dead. The other eye was lazy. She had a bulbous nose too big for her face. She pointed at us with a gnarled, boney finger with nails so long they started to curl. Dangling from that hand was a dead rabbit. She screeched at us, bearing only a few teeth and a stump of a tongue that looked burnt on the end. Next to her in the doorway was a rust-colored wolf the size of two Rottweilers, growling through gnashed teeth. I put myself between them and Laura and started scooting her back away from them.

“We don’t want any trouble. We thought this place was deserted; had no idea it was yours. I sprained my ankle and we needed to get out of the rain, that’s all. If you don’t mind, we’ll be leaving.”

I hobbled towards the door with Laura pressed tight behind me. The wolf snarled and barked as the old hag tried to say something. We backed up, not wanting to tangle with the beast or upset the woman. When we did, she entered the cabin and placed the rabbit on the table. The wolf backed us into a corner and never took its eyes off us as the woman went about her business. She walked by us to the shelves where she grabbed a large knife, showing it to us with a laugh. The display made me nervous. Laura yelped at her sudden movement and wicked laughter. I could feel her trembling behind me. The woman took the knife to the table where she noticed our baskets of mushrooms. She peered at us from over her shoulder as if we had stolen them from her. She turned her attention to the rabbit, hacking away at its neck trying to remove the head. The sound startled both Laura and I, and I think it nauseated my wife. It definitely did when the woman gutted the animal and played with its organs in front of us. I heard Laura regurgitate a little. I looked over my shoulder at her and she was no longer watching. The old woman threw the organs to the wolf and began stripping the rabbit of its skin before cutting it up into little chunks. She left for a moment, but the wolf didn’t budge. When she came back, she had a hand full of wild onions. She chopped those up, she chopped up some of our Morels, she threw them in the pot with the rabbit, a little water, and some flour and placed the pot over the fire. She sat down on her bed and clapped her hands. The wolf left us and lay down at her side. Laura and I looked at each other confused as she patted the floor, inviting us to sit down. Were we prisoners or guests? Sheepishly, we moved a little closer and sat down. She reached underneath the mattress and pulled out a small chalkboard and a piece of chalk.

“Mary,” she wrote, patting herself on the chest then pointing to us.

“Peter,” I said.

“Laura,” my wife said with a quivering voice.

“Do you live here,” I asked the woman.

She wiped her board clean and wrote, “Yes, 60 years.”

While the food was cooking, Mary told us her story. It was a lot of writing and erasing, writing and erasing, but I think the old lady was happy to have the company. Her mother passed away when she was fourteen, leaving her to be raised by her alcoholic father who took to beating and molesting her. He found her one day kissing a boy and in a drunken, jealous rage he forced a pair of pliers into her mouth, grabbing her tongue and cutting it off with scissors as punishment. He then used a hot knife to cauterize the wound. She ran away that night, running into the forest, never looking back. The old man who built the cabin found her sleeping under the cover of pine needles beneath a tree one morning a few nights after she left home. She was hungry, cold, and frightened to the point she considered going back home. The man she referred to as Ox took pity on her and gave her a place to stay. He taught her how to live off the land, trapping animals and identifying plants. The man had a deal set up with the general store in a nearby village where he would trade Morels for the items he needed – flour, thread, matches, and other minor necessities. The general store shut down decades ago, but the owner's descendants were still honoring the agreement for Mary's sake. She traded them her mushrooms and gave them a list of things she needed, which they would fulfill. We asked Mary why she stayed there in that cabin so long, especially after the old man died. She thought about it for a moment and wrote that it was an easier way of life. It was more peaceful. She had seen the changes that had transpired outside the forest. She felt the older she got, the more she no longer belonged in such a hectic world.

What Mary prepared for us to eat had the consistency of a stew. It was a little gamey but satisfying. As we ate, we shared a little bit about ourselves and how we came to be in her home. We promised to leave the Morels with her, but asked if we could come help her hunt throughout the season. Her face lit up at the idea of some regular company. Her face wasn’t the only thing that lit up. We had not noticed that the rain had stopped until light came pouring in through the window, catching our attention. Silently we looked at each other, knowing what the sunshine meant. It was time for Laura and I to head back to the car before nightfall. Mary’s countenance fell. I could tell that although she preferred solitude, that didn’t mean she didn’t get lonely. Laura saw it too, and I could hear in her voice that her heart was breaking for Mary. Laura hugged her and promised to be back in a month with a few presents that she already had in mind. That seemed to cheer the old woman up. We said our goodbyes and before we left, she gave me her walking stick, so Laura didn’t have to bear my weight all the way back to the car. We still had quite the trek to go.

When we returned to Mary’s cabin in the woods a month later my ankle was fine. Thank goodness because getting out of there last time was a frustrating, exhausting nightmare for both of us. We backpacked to the cabin this time. Laura got her some new cloths, a new blanket, tea, sugar, flour, and spices, some potatoes, a journal for her life’s story, and a massive beef flavored rawhide bone for the wolf. Mary was overwhelmed by Laura’s generosity. She took particular interest in the journal. Throughout the mushroom season Laura and Mary formed a bond. Mary would show Laura the writings in her journal which always captivated Laura. After the season ended, Laura continued to hike out to the cabin to see Mary. She would come home and tell me about their time together, what she read and the stories she was told. Mary lived an exceptional life, far from ordinary, perilous and adventurous. Laura began taking her laptop with her to the cabin, visiting more frequently, the two collaborating on what Lara felt could be a bestseller. It was. My Life and Mushrooms went on to sell over a million copies.