MUSHROOMS
My daughter thinks mushrooms are gross. Not only does she find them disgusting, she
actually is a bit suspicious of their motives.
She believes mushrooms are little aliens that are waiting for the signal
from their mushroom planet to take over Earth.
In the mean time, we eat some of them, and she’s worried that they will
retaliate and hold a grudge for all of the mushrooms consumed by unsuspecting
earthlings.
I have never given the matter much thought, until my husband
and I recently went chasing waterfalls.
We hiked all over Tennessee and Kentucky looking for the majestic floods
of cascading water. Some of the falls
were mere trickles, but all of them were simply gorgeous!
On our excursion, Scott found tons of beauty in the leaves
that had changed color on the ground. We
took pictures of lots of red and yellow leaves.
Some of the leaves were speckled and also contained shades of brown and
green. I found his color study
intriguing.
As we walked, I discovered a small mushroom – I was captivated. I bent down and studied the specimen. The shroom was shaped like an umbrella with a
white stem. The bowl of the plant was
white with intricate, small, raised bumps all over it. It was beautiful in its simplicity. I took a page from my husband’s book and took
a picture of the fungi.
At the next waterfall, I found two more specimens. One was the classic red mushroom with white polka-dots. The stalk was much bulkier and looked like it
could be a lawn ornament. There was also
a tiny yellow mushrooms cluster. I took
photos of these also.
I had found a fascination that I didn’t know I had. It turned out that I really liked
mushrooms. Of course, I sent the
pictures to my youngest daughter. She
expressed her revulsion, but I was not swayed in my newfound admiration of the
plants.
Fast forward to a few weeks later, I continued to find
mushrooms everywhere. There were two
unique mushrooms in our yard. One had “gills” underneath the cap: The gills
looked like gathered ribbon to me. The
second fungus was shaped like a wooden flower.
Last year, my oldest daughter (the one without mycophobia) and
I were driving home from grocery shopping.
As we drove, I saw gigantic mushrooms on the side of the road in the
shape of a ring. I quickly turned the
car around, jumped out of the car and began snapping pictures. Each mushroom in the display was the size of
a salad plate.
There is really nothing remarkable about mushrooms, but I
have learned that there is real beauty in simple things that some people find disturbing. I think if we take time to really look at
things, we can find beauty in almost everything, including alien fungi.
At least that’s the way I remember it.
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