forge

Forge has a couple of meanings. The OG definition refers to forming or shaping metal in a fire or furnace by beating and hammering it. A more modern definition involves the act of forming or creating relationships. A forger, however, refers to someone who passes fake money or documents, someone who lies or cheats or deceives, which is a sort of relationship, but not a good one as suggested by forged friendship or forged alliances. A forger convinces you to believe something that isn't true. Their forgery is often criminal and almost always destructive as people believe they've gotten something valuable but wound up with something worthless. A single letter separates a forager from a forger, the words are easy to mix up. I've long believed foraging to be a risky business because if you're not exactly certain of what you've collected from the wild, you could be in big trouble.

Case in point: my friend's neighbors cooked up some foraged mushrooms this summer. The daughter wound up in intensive care. The mother died. Coincidentally, I was listening to Wisconsin Public Radio and the topic of knowing your mushrooms came up. The host quipped, "All mushrooms are edible, but some are only edible once." That's about as true a proverb as I've ever heard.

Actual Beautiful Mushroom I saw this year but did not eat.

I've tasted and eaten wild things, but always with great caution. And never, ever have I had the courage to taste a wild mushroom. Not even this spring when I discovered what was almost certainly a widely coveted and valued cluster of morel mushrooms growing beside two of my raised beds in the garden. I discovered them with delight, a feeling that morphed into trepidation the longer I considered them. I took photos and sent queries to neighbors and compared the images on the internet to the fungus I'd stumbled upon while getting ready to plant dependable plants like beans and carrots, but no one could tell me definitively what type of mushrooms had sprouted between the asparagus bed and gravel path. Surely no poisonous fungi grows in a cultivated space. I eyed the tall fence around the garden and considered the area surrounding me. Ultimately, I decided to leave them alone and eventually they rotted and melted into a small greyish-black puddle.

Maybe they'll grow again next year.

Maybe not.

The moral of this story is that I didn't risk it and I lived to see another day.

Portrait of a Morel by Steven Schwartzman

Recently I read poetry by an old friend and he'd developed a lovely stanza where he used both forged and foraged within the space of a few lines. A little tricky, like the actual actions of foraging and forging, right? I appreciated how his use of both words made me slow down and re-read the lines because first I thought he'd made a mistake and then I admired how clever he was to make me slow down and look more closely.

The image his words conveyed made me hungry for mushrooms cooked in the heat of a cast iron skillet. Earthy and savory and satisfying.

After a miserable start to November, I've resolved to forge ahead, a phrase that suggests making progress despite a difficult terrain. Everyone can agree people voted as they did because of pressure and heat and trickery and confusion about what's real and what's not (although we may beg to differ on who was tricked and how and by whom). Out of these decisions, our country will be shaped into something better or worse than it currently is. I know I've changed because of the heat and the hammering and the deception. I keep returning to the quote "All mushrooms are edible, but some are only edible once." Maybe what results from the election will satisfy, maybe it will make us sick, maybe it will destroy us. The mushroom saying reminds me of a biblical proverb in 2 Peter 2:22, "a dog returns to its own vomit," another ugly truth.

Meanwhile, I'm forging ahead. I'm wringing out what joy I can from being outside in the woods and experiencing wonderful art. I've got dear friends, my family, baked goods, and dark beer. There's faith and God and starlight and yoga and less time online around the haters and more time in-person helping others.

Case in point: yesterday I visited a friend who lives in her own apartment, largely unassisted although she's 96 years old and looking at the end of her life sooner than later. We chatted about this, that, and the other. A few topics got hashed, rehashed, and rehashed again because at 96 one forgets we already covered that topic, but I figure if she enjoys repeating the point, I'm there for the listening. It felt good to sit across from her and hear her enthusiastically describe her life a place that offers a full slate of activities and dinner every night with her neighbors so she cannot get lonely and isolated. As she walked with me through the lobby at the end of my visit we saw a cardboard flat of plants potted in plastic cups. Another old woman with a walker had parked beside them. She told us, "These are from Diane. She grows these succulents and things and is always dividing and repotting them and giving them away. You should take one."

I gratefully accepted the gift of a spider plant because I haven't had one in a long time and recently thought I'd like another one. I felt thankful for Diane, who at the end of her life still nurtures new life and growth and gives it away to strangers.

Before I got out the door, my friend insisted I join her in a quick exploration of the library's return bin. Her building has a huge library of free books, well organized with lots of comfortable seating, situated beside the main doors to the lobby. She kept offering me books from the bin, "They're free you know," but I declined until she held up a paperback I'd recently considered buying. I promised to return it after I read it and I tucked it in my bag.

I hadn't planned to head out in the wild yesterday and collect good things, free things, like a new houseplant and a book. Unexpected and lovely gifts, blessings, really, just when I needed them.

Spill it, reader. Are you forging or foraging, or perhaps doing something else entirely?