Winter 2023

Growing up in the Chicago area I learned to hate winter. It began in October and lasted through April, sometimes into May. It brought brutal winds, temps low enough to close school, but never the soft, fluffy flakes to make an actual snow day. Winters in Chicago are mean, like a wicked step parent, and I reacted to them accordingly - half defiant thousand-yard-stare, "you can't hurt me,"; half whimpering under blankets dreaming spiteful revenge.

In 2010 I moved to California and began to learn new seasons. I learned to rejoice in clouds in the sky, a sign of "weather" to break up the enormous unending blue. I learned to pray for rain. "We only have summer and fall," I said to folks back home, "and fall lasts all winter long." Trees stay green or drop slick yellow leaves onto warm russet redwood duff. Air sparkles with evaporating dew. I bundle in sweaters and throws and then peel them off by lunchtime in the ever-warm solar noon. 

Winter (now) in the woods (here) is mushroom time. The harvest is unending and voluminous. Bouquets arrive in morning bunches and then spend weeks relaxing into fragrant goo. It's likely not possible for one human person to know all their names and shapes. So many arrive and disappear again unrecorded, unrecognized. To me, each fruit is an orchard. I want to spend days wandering between their frilly gills and dusting my hair with their spores. To the mushrooms I give thanks. Thank you for teaching me about Gentle Winter. Giving Winter. Fertile Winter. Winter of Calm Air and Soft Dark Soil.