Seven Morels

There was about a year in my youth when I lived with my sister and her husband in a big tent in the woods in Southern Ohio. Why? Too complicated to explain, really, and I’m not sure I understand it myself. It was a period in my life when I did not know what I wanted to do next and was incapable of moving forward. Looking back on it, I was depressed, certainly. For me, this was only partly an experiment in living off the land, as I had a day job as a licensed practical nurse in town, and my primary contribution to the common weal was financial. Oh, I cooked sometime, I helped keep the site clean, but the real mover and shaker in the whole endeavor was my sister. I was a fifth wheel, a hanger-on, and felt like one when I was in touch with myself enough to feel anything at all. From childhood, I was used to riding in my energetic sister’s wake, but doing so at this point, at the age of 21, wasn’t helping me any, to be sure. I was more than happy to cede the high ground to her in almost everything. She and her husband had aspirations of really making a go of this back-to-the-land thing, and eventually they did buy a piece of property and raise goats.

So this whole thing was kind of a practice run for them, and as if earning scouting badges, we—mostly they—enthusiastically practiced the arts associated with living off the land. We had a Bradford Angier guide to wild edibles, and one day my sister declared with conviction, as she is wont to do, that now was the perfect time of year in which to find morels. In the early 70s, the option to purchase them dried at a gourmet store did not exist. Mushrooming lore had it that they were difficult to find, and those who were skilled or lucky enough to do so guarded their favorite morel tips, tricks and locations as if the little fungi were made of gold.

Off we trekked into the woods. We meandered aimlessly, each of us seeking his or her own path as intuition or happenstance dictated. I wandered about, keeping my eyes to the ground, seeing nothing but dried leaves till before long, I spotted one! Couldn’t believe it, but there it was. What a feeling! I wandered some more, and then spotted another one! Then two more, and before I knew it, I had gathered seven. Each one was growing by itself, so this was seven separate discoveries, seven different gifts from the gods deigning to reveal themselves to me.

I don’t know how long we searched, but we agreed to reconvene at some point, and when we came back together I shared my find. Neither my sister nor her husband found any. I never chopped and stacked our firewood, like my brother-in-law. I never made any life-improving design innovations to our living space, like my sister. If worthiness was measurable by the degree of commitment and contribution we brought to our common life, I was seemingly unworthy. Yet I was the one, the only one, who found the morels, and I found seven of them.

We took them back to our campsite and gently sautéed them in a little butter, then sat there relishing them unadorned, in all their fungal glory. None of us had ever tasted them before. Perhaps my palate was not very well trained, but from a culinary point of view, I couldn’t tell what all the fuss was about. Nevertheless, they were the best mushrooms I have ever tasted.

I had forgotten about them for a long time, but recently have found myself thinking about them quite a bit. They make me feel abundant, proud, loved by God.