The Mushroom

I have been feeling nostalgic and weepy today, all because of a carved wooden mushroom. It has made me think about how people imbue objects with meaning. On its own, this mushroom means nothing. It's neat, and I would buy it if I saw it in a store if I had the extra money, but it has no inherent meaning in and of itself. Yet, I have somehow folded this mushroom into my heart, and it has nestled in so snugly that the thought of losing it tugs on that little piece of heart and makes me weep.

What is it about this mushroom? I tell myself that material things don't matter. I try to raise my kids that way, although I think I have failed miserably the way they go on about what I deem very silly things. I suppose my attachment to this mushroom could be a very silly thing, too. But I am undeniably, inextricably attached to this carved wooden mushroom.

When I was a kid, I saw my daddy-Guy (my father's name is Guy) every other weekend. I remember state fairs, the tree house, the horsewhip I carried because I was afraid of the neighbor's evil geese who hissed at and chased me (I never used the whip; it was like Dumbo's feather), the trips cross country and trying to sleep curled up like a cat in the back of Dad's truck, getting thrown by the neighbor's pony, hiking in the hills behind the house, refusing to cross the plank-bridge across the stream because I was sure it was going to break and it did, Tasha, pancakeswithcornmeal-spaghettiwithwheatgerm-carobchipcookies, one of Dad's girlfriend's fetal pigs in a jar, running wild with his hippie friend's kids while questionable herbs might have been smoked . . . Somehow, all of those memories have been locked up inside that mushroom.

I realized that I have always assumed the mushroom would be mine, so when I discovered it might not be, my heart panicked. I felt frantic. I tell myself that, after all, it is just a mushroom. I tell myself that my siblings might have similar strong attachments to it, yet  it is so tied into my self-perception that I have difficulty believing that. It's like when you were a teen and you "loved" a boy who loved someone else, and you just knew that they didn't really love that other person because you were the one for them and they just didn't know it yet. That's how I feel about this carved wooden mushroom. In my heart, it is mine.

It is just a mushroom. A mushroom imbued with meaning, by me, but nonetheless, just a mushroom. I don't know that it won't one day be mine. I tell myself I am crying over a future loss that may never happen, which is just silly. But maybe instead I am crying over a past that is gone yet still present in my heart.

I wonder whether I should post this. I don't want Doug, Cait, and Beth to feel like I am trying to start a contest to see who loves the mushroom more (although I cannot promise my subconscious is not doing just that). I know, Doug, Cait, and Beth, that you may love this mushroom as much as I do, and I would (try very very hard to) be happy for the one who gets it while feeling sad for myself.

No matter what, though, I will have these memories, even if they be wrapped in the shape of a carved wooden mushroom. And that is what matters most.