🍄Welcome to the Story Stump

Pull up a seat, friend. This is where the stories settle. Some are quiet. Some are raw. Some might sound a little like yours. All of them are offered from the heart-with dirt under the nails and light breaking through the branches.

This is a place to rest, to remember, and maybe..to begin telling your own.

Some stories don’t need permission to be shared. They just know when they’re needed.

I hadn’t told her a thing about my mother. Not that day. Not ever, really. I usually laugh it off-call myself an orphan like it’s a joke.

But that day, she handed me a story. One thing I didn’t ask for, but maybe had been waiting on.

We were just talking, standing in her yard. I had stopped by to see my husband, who was working on her house again-one of her many. She’s one of my favorites. (That’s not fair. They all are.)

Her laugh? It reminds me of mine. Only sweeter. I had to learn to love mine. I love hers instantly.

That day, she told me about her mother. How one day she walked into the nursing home and asked, “Why don’t you love me?”

And her mother, without missing a beat, replied:

“Why don’t you hate me? I sent you away. I never showed you love. Why don’t you hate me?”

And this woman-this grown up orphan who’d lived through more than most-looked her mother in the eye and said,

“I don’t hate you. I don’t want to be you. There’s no room for hate here.”

She laughed when she told me. Not out of bitterness, but release. Like someone who knows they turned out alright, maybe even better because ofit.

She had no idea what that moment did for me. No idea what I’d been carrying quietly. But somehow, she still spoke right to it.

Maybe it’s something in the eyes.

Maybe it’s something the mycelium just knows we need.

Because when we share our stories without expectation, without performance

we hand out small lights.

And sometimes, a light is all someone needs to find their own way out.

The forest is quiet now, but more voices are gathering. Stay close.

Have a story of your own that’s quietly asking to be heard? We’d be honored to sit with it. Share your story here and help something beautiful grow. 🌼