Mushroom madness and other signs of aging—someone fetch a forest bouncer!

It began around the same time as my other symptoms of aging: I started taking an interest in the autumn forest. Sure, I had occasionally gone out picking mushrooms and berries before, but now I felt strange forces surging inside me: my feet slipped into boots and carried me to the forest whenever I had the chance—and in Finland, that chance is pretty much all the time.

I already knew different mushroom varieties when I was young, thanks to my mother, who was passionately into mushrooms and arranged coin-prize identification contests for my brother and me. In my thirties and forties, I gradually got used to mildly flavored mushroom dishes: marinated button mushrooms, pickled chanterelles, and one mind-blowing, velvety porcini soup (cooked with cream and champagne at a friend’s bachelorette party) all shaped my relationship to mushrooms. By the time I was approaching fifty, porcini risottos and chanterelle sauces had become part of my repertoire, but mushrooms are still not my favorite food. The reason for my later-in-life mushroom craving is not about culinary pleasure.

I could never eat or preserve all the mushrooms I gather, which is why I usually apply my catch-and-release principle. In the case of mushrooms, it means I pick them myself but pass the haul along. In my best year, I gave mushrooms to more than thirty people, and if the smallest share was one liter (1 qt) and the largest a full bucket of around ten liters (2.6 gal), you can probably figure out the severity of my addiction.

My relationship with the forest has changed. Even unfamiliar woods beckon to me, and once I step among the trees, the forest grabs hold of me like a giant magnet. My spouse, who is not an addict like I am, has had to come up with various tricks to get me out of the forest when I declare in a manic tone, “This hill needs to be cleared!”

Once, I was allowed to pick everything I could reach from the path as I made a beeline toward the car—but that still took a while, because I expanded my picking range by crawling and stretching.

You might imagine, that making good use of what the forest has to offer and strolling in the autumn woods would be entirely positive, but when you add an addictive tendency and an inability to leave, you’re treading dangerous waters.

If I’m out by myself, things might go like this: It’s late fall. In Finland, the sun already sets around six o’clock, so when I step into the forest after work, it’s getting dark. But I just have to go. I find a clump of funnel chanterelles and start scooping them up. Without my glasses, I can’t see the small mushrooms in the dark, so I put them on—but when I lower my head, the glasses fall off. I feel around in the moss with my hand. Where did they go? I turn on my phone’s flashlight, find my glasses, but at the same time spot another patch of funnel chanterelles.

The darkness deepens, but apparently I can keep going in the dark by using my phone’s flashlight. It’s tough to pick when I’m holding my phone, so I put it in my mouth and point my clenched jaws toward the next clump. I proceed methodically, collecting a good yield, and then my phone’s battery dies. I’m all alone, deep in a pitch-black forest.

I need a forest bouncer, a determined figure who would grab me by the armpits, hoist me back onto the trail, and say: “Ma’am, it’s time to go—you’ve had plenty for tonight!”

Perhaps it’s an evolutionary trick that mushroom madness emerges specifically among older women. That way, they—or rather, we—stay conveniently useful, capable, and even pretty limber while bowing over the mossy mounds.