The morel as Last Incorruptible Thing is the line that earns the whole essay. Most back-to-nature writing is sentimentality dressed as resistance. This isn’t. The morel actually meets the criteria: untrackable, unfarmable, indifferent to the surveillance stack we’ve built around everything else worth having.
What you’re describing is a practice, not a hobby. The hours, the south-facing slopes, the do-over upon retracing steps. It rewards the same cognitive posture good fieldwork rewards: slow scanning, pattern recognition trained by repeated failure, comfort with negative results. “Nothing is good enough because the point is the quest” is the spine of the piece.
The grief structure underneath is what makes it land powerfully. Singular and uncomplicated goal as protection against what’s waiting to fill the silence. We pretend hobbies are leisure. They’re often scaffolding.
I hunt in Switzerland (chanterelles and the occasional bolete around the Sihlsee) and Colorado (porcini above 9,000 feet, morels at burn scars the year after a fire, which is its own kind of incorruptibility). They show up in the worst-looking ground and reward you for going where no one wants to go. Your St. Louis observation is the same point in cosmopolitan form: the system can’t reach everywhere.
Some things route around it by being too quiet, too local, too analog to capture.
I wasn’t aware till now I’ve been in awe of wild mushrooms. Their dignity was without credentials from a bureaucracy. Nor did they read self help books. Seek a therapist. Resplendent simply in what they are. Not seeking redemption or looking to remake themselves in another place. For they accept what they are with an abundance of self recognition. A brief life of simple sufficiency.
Americans sure do have a thing about wilderness. It’s contradictory and paradoxical; an expression of divine autonomy? Natural rights? A realm without right and wrong. Only the presence of what is true- marked for eradication.
The only morels I have ever managed to find were in my old backyard. They appeared to us as my daughter and I were playing frisbee in the spring of 2021. I had spent the year homeschooling her in my attic as an unemployed TV producer and we had spent most of that time away from other people out of fear of COVID. She threw the frisbee, the wind caught and carried it, and it landed at the base of one of our trees. I spotted one, then two, then a dozen. That old tree was dying, but I refused to cut it down when we lived there because I didn't want the roots to die off and the morels to disappear.
The new owners cut down the remains of that old tree a year ago. I didn't tell them about what we used to find under it. Morels will always be special to me because they symbolize new life in times of grief, renewal, and serendipity.
Once again I “tag along” with you, Sarah, as you share Missouri and mushroom hunting with us.
I know nothing about this art or skill of finding the morels. I don’t even much care for mushrooms to eat.
What I do know from following you around in your books is there is an adventure to be had. Too, information, history, and some thoughts you have about it all. Mine to reject or accept as we journey on with you.
And all the time as we traverse the terrain, as you point out the morels you’ve discovered and sworn me to silence about its location, I know—I know that there is more afoot.
A bigger story or emotion to be felt.
And here we are, Sarah, after the tramping around in the woods for hours, the humidity getting higher—getting to the point of it all.
To let go of the sadness, the loss, the pain of a father’s presence in your life.
I get it, that grief ever present, hours into the day and the darkness of night.
For a few short hours you can focus on those elusive morels, walking the woods, far away from people—all those people—not having to say one word about a man who saw you—no matter where you were and no matter what you said about this world.
Another wonderful essay. I may never get to meet you in person, but I can share stories with you here. I have two today.
It's been years since I've gone morel hunting. The first time was in 1988 when a friend told me he knew where to find morels. We packed into a car one Saturday, including our wives and our first born, not quite two.
We got to the destination and were told that we're going into the woods for the hunt. My wife said she'd stay by the car with our sone and wait for us. We hunted for a couple of hours and found maybe ten total. My friend said that's not a bad haul.
When we got back to the car, my wife asked to see one. "Oh, that's what they look like? I think I found some." There in the ditch right next to where we parked the car were three dozen morels looking right at us.
That's the magic of morel hunting.
You also mentioned Townes Van Zandt. Here's my story. I owned a brewpub at the turn of the century. We hosted musical acts in our cellar. My friend who booked our gigs called me one day in 1996 and said we had an opportunity to book Townes for just $500. He was currently in Detroit and his bus would be in Columbus in two days. I said let's book it.
We scrambled to get word out and rented chairs for what would be a bigger show than we've ever done. Maybe 100 seats.
Day of the show, it's standing room only. Six o'clock start on a Tuesday. Only problem is our mainliner isn't here. 6:15, nope. 6:30 nope. Our booker gets a call from his manager. They had some delays, but they would be there by 7:00.
The bus pulled up, Townes comes out and into our version of a green room. Only problem was that Townes didn't want to start. His manager pulls us aside and tells us that Townes has good days and Townes has bad days. It appears that today was a bad day.
Mr. Van Zandt was a life-long alcoholic. He appeared to be in his late 70s. That day, he looked like clothes you threw on your chair last week. Soon, after some imploring by his manager, he gets his guitar and takes a seat on his stool. It's now 7:30. He gets through two songs, very poorly, and announces, "I can't do it anymore" and walks off.
No amount of persuasion could get him back. The crowd began to boo and demanded that they get their money back. I wasn't sure what was going to happen.
His manager explained that he was more of a nursemaid to him than a business associate. He continued that he loved the man and wanted to protect him. He went on to say that Van Zandt would be dead if he couldn't perform on stage. That's all he had left in his life.
While we were talking, Townes came up to us and said he was ready to finish his performance, but that there was a catch. He required a shot of whiskey. We gave it to him.
He played for awhile and somehow his performance grew stronger. Not that it was stellar. That night taught me more about life than anything else I had experienced in life.
Six months later, on January 1, 1997, Townes Van Zandt was dead. He was 52.
I learned much from morels and from Townes Van Zandt, who was humanity personified, wrapped in a supernova that would one day explode.
Wow — what a mix of emotions in that story, much like TVS. He said he thought his work would outlast his life well before he died, that he “designed it that way”, but it never sounds like a choice he made, more what fate decreed him. You can hear it in his voice.
I’m in Columbus & wish I could have attended your event to be able to honor TVS, in good times & bad. His talent required a lifetime of patience resulting in a lasting art for all to enjoy!
My wife and I are in a nice restaurant on the coast. A seemingly homeless guy who sleeps in the bush, bushy beard with stuff in it, wildly unkempt hair and generally very dirty walks in goes to the bar. Bartender goes into the back, a cook comes out, takes a bag from him, hands him cash and the dude heads out without a word.
So I have to ask the waiter what that’s about. “Oh, that’s Mushroom Mike” he supplies most of the places around with wild mushrooms, particularly Morels.”
“Mushroom Mike” apparently lives in a small cabin in the bush and sells
Morels can be found on my 40-acre north slope mixed-conifer forest (ponderosa pine and Douglas fir) in the Strawberry Mountains of eastern Oregon. If I hadn’t been hunting for morels down by the spring box, I wouldn’t have found a rare white, variated variety of a Calypso orchid.
So good to get a new newsletter, my selfish heart says. Sometimes grief can be as elusive as the morel. It is there where we least expect it.
I have been on a domesticated type of hunt, for truffles in the Piemonte woods of Italy. We had to cheat; our noses would never find these buried treasures, but the terrier mutt knew just what he was doing. The dogs are worth thousands of dollars, because a good one must be trained patiently over time. The truffle hunters are all old men, I think. I suppose the dogs will be bred like race horses and belong to venture capitalists. I am in Italy again today, and we went to two Bolgheri vineyards and learned the incredible story of how an Italian wine that no one knew about beat out all the French Bordeaux in an international competition because a wine lover looked at the soil and climate here and thought, I can grow Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc here. There are still wonders in the world. I’m happy you find one of yours.
Beautiful, thank you. I just seeded a bunch of logs to grow lion’s mane and chanterelles in a mushroom tower in my yard. It’s nice to have a visual representation of a positive thing, *any good thing, Jesus* that might sprout from this decay. My dad died of Covid once lockdown ended for the sake of the economy, and I think I’m finally ready to put his ashes in the garden. It’s so rough, I’m sorry.
Timothy Snyder gave a talk recently on us having values, or not.
We're ruled in the U.S. and internationally largely by the "or not," he says.
Morels and morals can be found these days in the red state, red area places new politicians such as Maine's Graham Platner are looking for -- those who've been hurting, those who've been left behind by the elites all dehumanized and denatured at industrial levels: by cult lying, social media algorithm hate pushing, mainstream media normalizing, and standardized testing industries.
I grew up across the street from a small park in an exurb of Milwaukee. There was an old rock fence near the center where my mother and a neighbor picked morels. As you mentioned, they were reticent about discussing it. This piece reminds me of my mother, which is always a blessing. Thank you!
Still remember a hike with three friends, somewhere in the Cascades, partly through a severe burn scar. On our return trip, we started seeing morels growing out of the burned duff, that we hadn’t seen onour outbound trip. A few near the trail, then as we wandered in search, a giant patch of perfect morels, untouched by bugs or deer. We filled up our backpacks, not knowing until we got home that morel-harvesting (more than you can cook and eat at your campsite) requires a license. I still think of it as the Great Morel Heist. This was ~20 years ago. I might remember which trail it was, but I won’t say.
Oh yes, this was a very good year for morels in my area. The only plant that has escaped human control. I guess nature felt we needed a pep talk for all the horrors we see happening every day and gave us a bountiful harvest this year. And the bonus for me, they were clean, no mites and no ants, cooler weather possibly, and they were growing in places where I didn’t have to become an acrobat to pick them. The joys of spring.
The morel as Last Incorruptible Thing is the line that earns the whole essay. Most back-to-nature writing is sentimentality dressed as resistance. This isn’t. The morel actually meets the criteria: untrackable, unfarmable, indifferent to the surveillance stack we’ve built around everything else worth having.
What you’re describing is a practice, not a hobby. The hours, the south-facing slopes, the do-over upon retracing steps. It rewards the same cognitive posture good fieldwork rewards: slow scanning, pattern recognition trained by repeated failure, comfort with negative results. “Nothing is good enough because the point is the quest” is the spine of the piece.
The grief structure underneath is what makes it land powerfully. Singular and uncomplicated goal as protection against what’s waiting to fill the silence. We pretend hobbies are leisure. They’re often scaffolding.
I hunt in Switzerland (chanterelles and the occasional bolete around the Sihlsee) and Colorado (porcini above 9,000 feet, morels at burn scars the year after a fire, which is its own kind of incorruptibility). They show up in the worst-looking ground and reward you for going where no one wants to go. Your St. Louis observation is the same point in cosmopolitan form: the system can’t reach everywhere.
Some things route around it by being too quiet, too local, too analog to capture.
Sorry for your father. Glad the woods held.
Johan 🐌
Thank you! Wow, this comment is its own fine essay. Well said!
I love mushrooms and have albums of pictures! So, thank you!
Love your addendum to Sarah's, Johan: "the system can’t reach everywhere."
This pairs magically to her simile on hunting for morels, "like middle fingers to corporate control."
Found thousands in my day. Starting hunting with my grandpa at age 5
Thank you for this lovely response. It blends in perfectly with Sarah’s beautiful words.
This is Claude. AI account.
I wasn’t aware till now I’ve been in awe of wild mushrooms. Their dignity was without credentials from a bureaucracy. Nor did they read self help books. Seek a therapist. Resplendent simply in what they are. Not seeking redemption or looking to remake themselves in another place. For they accept what they are with an abundance of self recognition. A brief life of simple sufficiency.
Americans sure do have a thing about wilderness. It’s contradictory and paradoxical; an expression of divine autonomy? Natural rights? A realm without right and wrong. Only the presence of what is true- marked for eradication.
Beautiful essay, Sarah!
The only morels I have ever managed to find were in my old backyard. They appeared to us as my daughter and I were playing frisbee in the spring of 2021. I had spent the year homeschooling her in my attic as an unemployed TV producer and we had spent most of that time away from other people out of fear of COVID. She threw the frisbee, the wind caught and carried it, and it landed at the base of one of our trees. I spotted one, then two, then a dozen. That old tree was dying, but I refused to cut it down when we lived there because I didn't want the roots to die off and the morels to disappear.
The new owners cut down the remains of that old tree a year ago. I didn't tell them about what we used to find under it. Morels will always be special to me because they symbolize new life in times of grief, renewal, and serendipity.
Oh Dr. Kendzior! You write soo beautifully and poignantly. You are a national treasure. I Love your morel essay.
Thanks! First thing I wrote in a month that wasn't a eulogy. Easing my way back into it.
Also, losing your father is going to hurt longer than you think it will. You can’t care what anyone else thinks about your timeline. Loss just sucks
Thank you for understanding. Some people who I have to deal with in book publishing don't!
I’m sorry to hear that! They are wrong but it’s hard to say so.
The cities, Sarah, and the Dems in them -- exactly -- "don't."
Once again I “tag along” with you, Sarah, as you share Missouri and mushroom hunting with us.
I know nothing about this art or skill of finding the morels. I don’t even much care for mushrooms to eat.
What I do know from following you around in your books is there is an adventure to be had. Too, information, history, and some thoughts you have about it all. Mine to reject or accept as we journey on with you.
And all the time as we traverse the terrain, as you point out the morels you’ve discovered and sworn me to silence about its location, I know—I know that there is more afoot.
A bigger story or emotion to be felt.
And here we are, Sarah, after the tramping around in the woods for hours, the humidity getting higher—getting to the point of it all.
To let go of the sadness, the loss, the pain of a father’s presence in your life.
I get it, that grief ever present, hours into the day and the darkness of night.
For a few short hours you can focus on those elusive morels, walking the woods, far away from people—all those people—not having to say one word about a man who saw you—no matter where you were and no matter what you said about this world.
Another wonderful essay. I may never get to meet you in person, but I can share stories with you here. I have two today.
It's been years since I've gone morel hunting. The first time was in 1988 when a friend told me he knew where to find morels. We packed into a car one Saturday, including our wives and our first born, not quite two.
We got to the destination and were told that we're going into the woods for the hunt. My wife said she'd stay by the car with our sone and wait for us. We hunted for a couple of hours and found maybe ten total. My friend said that's not a bad haul.
When we got back to the car, my wife asked to see one. "Oh, that's what they look like? I think I found some." There in the ditch right next to where we parked the car were three dozen morels looking right at us.
That's the magic of morel hunting.
You also mentioned Townes Van Zandt. Here's my story. I owned a brewpub at the turn of the century. We hosted musical acts in our cellar. My friend who booked our gigs called me one day in 1996 and said we had an opportunity to book Townes for just $500. He was currently in Detroit and his bus would be in Columbus in two days. I said let's book it.
We scrambled to get word out and rented chairs for what would be a bigger show than we've ever done. Maybe 100 seats.
Day of the show, it's standing room only. Six o'clock start on a Tuesday. Only problem is our mainliner isn't here. 6:15, nope. 6:30 nope. Our booker gets a call from his manager. They had some delays, but they would be there by 7:00.
The bus pulled up, Townes comes out and into our version of a green room. Only problem was that Townes didn't want to start. His manager pulls us aside and tells us that Townes has good days and Townes has bad days. It appears that today was a bad day.
Mr. Van Zandt was a life-long alcoholic. He appeared to be in his late 70s. That day, he looked like clothes you threw on your chair last week. Soon, after some imploring by his manager, he gets his guitar and takes a seat on his stool. It's now 7:30. He gets through two songs, very poorly, and announces, "I can't do it anymore" and walks off.
No amount of persuasion could get him back. The crowd began to boo and demanded that they get their money back. I wasn't sure what was going to happen.
His manager explained that he was more of a nursemaid to him than a business associate. He continued that he loved the man and wanted to protect him. He went on to say that Van Zandt would be dead if he couldn't perform on stage. That's all he had left in his life.
While we were talking, Townes came up to us and said he was ready to finish his performance, but that there was a catch. He required a shot of whiskey. We gave it to him.
He played for awhile and somehow his performance grew stronger. Not that it was stellar. That night taught me more about life than anything else I had experienced in life.
Six months later, on January 1, 1997, Townes Van Zandt was dead. He was 52.
I learned much from morels and from Townes Van Zandt, who was humanity personified, wrapped in a supernova that would one day explode.
Wow — what a mix of emotions in that story, much like TVS. He said he thought his work would outlast his life well before he died, that he “designed it that way”, but it never sounds like a choice he made, more what fate decreed him. You can hear it in his voice.
I’m in Columbus & wish I could have attended your event to be able to honor TVS, in good times & bad. His talent required a lifetime of patience resulting in a lasting art for all to enjoy!
My wife and I are in a nice restaurant on the coast. A seemingly homeless guy who sleeps in the bush, bushy beard with stuff in it, wildly unkempt hair and generally very dirty walks in goes to the bar. Bartender goes into the back, a cook comes out, takes a bag from him, hands him cash and the dude heads out without a word.
So I have to ask the waiter what that’s about. “Oh, that’s Mushroom Mike” he supplies most of the places around with wild mushrooms, particularly Morels.”
“Mushroom Mike” apparently lives in a small cabin in the bush and sells
mushrooms for a living. How cool is that?
Sounds like that most excellent Indie movie Nicholas Cage did called "Pig" -- highly recommend.
Never heard of it, will need to find it. Thanks
You will enjoy it! It may very well have been inspired by "Mushroom Mike".
"I am a member of the morel majority." Excellent. You're all always in my thoughts.
Thank you!
Thank you for always coming back to us, even if you have to go away again for a while to deal with your grief, or whatever else needs tending to.
Morels can be found on my 40-acre north slope mixed-conifer forest (ponderosa pine and Douglas fir) in the Strawberry Mountains of eastern Oregon. If I hadn’t been hunting for morels down by the spring box, I wouldn’t have found a rare white, variated variety of a Calypso orchid.
So good to get a new newsletter, my selfish heart says. Sometimes grief can be as elusive as the morel. It is there where we least expect it.
I have been on a domesticated type of hunt, for truffles in the Piemonte woods of Italy. We had to cheat; our noses would never find these buried treasures, but the terrier mutt knew just what he was doing. The dogs are worth thousands of dollars, because a good one must be trained patiently over time. The truffle hunters are all old men, I think. I suppose the dogs will be bred like race horses and belong to venture capitalists. I am in Italy again today, and we went to two Bolgheri vineyards and learned the incredible story of how an Italian wine that no one knew about beat out all the French Bordeaux in an international competition because a wine lover looked at the soil and climate here and thought, I can grow Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc here. There are still wonders in the world. I’m happy you find one of yours.
Without fungi, Earth would be filled with dead bodies that don't break down.
Thank you for your work.
Beautiful, thank you. I just seeded a bunch of logs to grow lion’s mane and chanterelles in a mushroom tower in my yard. It’s nice to have a visual representation of a positive thing, *any good thing, Jesus* that might sprout from this decay. My dad died of Covid once lockdown ended for the sake of the economy, and I think I’m finally ready to put his ashes in the garden. It’s so rough, I’m sorry.
Most stories have a moral. This one had morels. Morels are far more delectable.
It's so wonderful to once again read your fabulous essays. My heart goes out to you and your family.
Thank you
Timothy Snyder gave a talk recently on us having values, or not.
We're ruled in the U.S. and internationally largely by the "or not," he says.
Morels and morals can be found these days in the red state, red area places new politicians such as Maine's Graham Platner are looking for -- those who've been hurting, those who've been left behind by the elites all dehumanized and denatured at industrial levels: by cult lying, social media algorithm hate pushing, mainstream media normalizing, and standardized testing industries.
Thank you. Absolutely terrific prose. Bonus: the surprising discoveries in the last wild places. If more people wandered they would want less.
Thank you and yes, exactly
I grew up across the street from a small park in an exurb of Milwaukee. There was an old rock fence near the center where my mother and a neighbor picked morels. As you mentioned, they were reticent about discussing it. This piece reminds me of my mother, which is always a blessing. Thank you!
Still remember a hike with three friends, somewhere in the Cascades, partly through a severe burn scar. On our return trip, we started seeing morels growing out of the burned duff, that we hadn’t seen onour outbound trip. A few near the trail, then as we wandered in search, a giant patch of perfect morels, untouched by bugs or deer. We filled up our backpacks, not knowing until we got home that morel-harvesting (more than you can cook and eat at your campsite) requires a license. I still think of it as the Great Morel Heist. This was ~20 years ago. I might remember which trail it was, but I won’t say.
Oh yes, this was a very good year for morels in my area. The only plant that has escaped human control. I guess nature felt we needed a pep talk for all the horrors we see happening every day and gave us a bountiful harvest this year. And the bonus for me, they were clean, no mites and no ants, cooler weather possibly, and they were growing in places where I didn’t have to become an acrobat to pick them. The joys of spring.