It's been a cool and wet summer here. Some living things long for more heat and more sun. Other living things, apparently, do not.
Nice weather if you're a mushroom. (This is one of the cheerful ones. I spared you the picture of the one with three slugs on it. You're welcome.)
And in what another blogger calls "heavy-handed metaphors," I wonder what those mushrooms represent in my own life.
Oh, stop rolling your eyes--you know what I'm talking about. Mushrooms are the things that you pretend don't exist. Like (a trivial example) whether the gums really are receding from your back molars, which means periodontal surgery is in your future, and would that be your near-term future or your long-term future?
Or (a less trivial example) whether ten years from now you or someone you love will still be able to climb ladders and paint the exterior of the camp. Whether by then perhaps you'll have learned not to be squeamish about the status of the plumbing. Or the prevalence of mice. Or even, say, about mushrooms growing places where you might wish they didn't because what does that mean about keeping the place dry and rot-free.
Which is not to even mention all those completely non-trivial examples that I do not share online and rarely even whisper about in the dark. Death, illness, decay.
So, mushrooms. When you're in the middle of a cool, damp, mostly gloomy and overcast summer, when the economy is teetering and you can't decide what to do about the $1200 in exhaust work your car might need because your country doesn't have a decent Cash for Clunkers program, when two paying projects have disappeared in one afternoon and nothing comes in to replace them--well, let's just say that you look at mushrooms and wonder what's next.
What else could surface after lurking for years.
And then you look outside and notice that today, for this moment, it's sunny. So you go enjoy it while you can.
