going underground

“I do NOT want to do this right now.”

After saying this out loud in the trailhead parking lot, I slammed my car trunk closed and hit the lock button. Then walked the 100 or so steps to the start of the trail and headed into the trees.

A few minutes earlier, I was slipping off my Skechers and sliding into my dirt covered sneakers. It’s become a bit of a ritual, a realization I only came to this morning. After I park the car, I turn on my walk/hike/exercise tracker app and pull my body out of the driver’s seat. Walk to the trunk of my car, and change my shoes. It’s become routine.

Then I take a minute to assess how I’m feeling physically, mentally…and that helps me set my goal for that moment, giving myself permission to set more than one, taking stock of how I feel along the way and honoring what my body’s saying back to me. This morning, I happened to say it out loud. Whether or not someone’s in the vicinity of this occurrence doesn’t really matter. I vocalized it today because I needed to acknowledge it, let it go and be on my way.

Something happened about half a mile in: I turned off my analytical brain, and turned on my artistic eye. I started thinking about the fall equinox, and oddly enough - mushrooms. Shortly after I woke up earlier, I delved into the wonderful world of Bjork; a brief YouTube wormhole winding its way through a few of the tracks (and mesmerizing videos) from her new record and in particular, this awesomely magical few minutes of her describing how Fossora is her “mushroom album” - she says, “It’s something that lives underground. Something that lives underground in the body. And it’s like lying in the soil and letting the body and the flesh vibrate through you.” She explains how mushrooms travel through the whole forest, bubbling and popping up everywhere. And it’s such an appropriate way to describe her music, and her visual and earthy reference for how the bass drums hit and the music bursts out in these bubbles. 

That may seem like an odd thing to interject here within a musing that could have swerved into resilience, motivation, blah, blah, adversity, blah. But I was stepping through this little tangle of blackberry bush, sword ferns and ivy and looked down to see these teeny comical mushrooms popping out of the ground and then another little cluster of new fungus formations on a log nearby. It gave me a good chuckle, honestly. And had me once again smiling at the connections we sometimes dismiss or miss entirely because our brains are preoccupied and switched out of the present. These little things are what I’ve been missing. 

And just like that my attitude and appreciation for moving my body when I didn’t want to became a gift. I felt lighter. Like today’s lesson wasn’t really about perseverance. It was about opening up. Traveling the forest. Finding my Fossora, so to speak. 

I got back to the car, switched out my shoes and turned off the app. I slid back into the driver’s seat and felt like I had something to write about.