This isn't only about mushrooms. It's about silence, respect, and learning how to live.

Now I live by the sea. It's beautiful, yes. But it's monotonous. The same sound, the same horizon, the same rhythm. The sea traps you in its own way. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not so much. That's why I wrote about it.

But if I'm honest, before the sea there was the mountain. The forest. And the forest trapped me too—only it did it in a positive way. And that's the difference.

When I was eighteen, I'd leave school after those long mornings in FP from eight to two, and I'd stop by the factory to pick up my father. He came out tired, with the face of someone who had worked for real, but once we got in the car, the air changed. We didn't talk much. We didn't need to. Something was pulling us upward, toward the mountain.

Late August. Early September. That moment when the heat is still there, but the forest starts telling you a different season is coming. The smell is different: damp earth, pine, drying leaves.

Up there, my father was a different man. In the forest he moved like it was his house. In a way, it was. He had worked half his life there with my grandfather in forestry. He knew every corner. I just followed him, learning.

The first rule was silence. Not the silence of anger. Not the silence of punishment. The silence of respect. The silence of being present.

“If you make noise, you attract people,” he told me. At first I thought: what does it matter? Then I saw it. Some days the forest looked like the Ramblas—people everywhere, noise, hurry, bags, baskets… like they were going to take everything.

My father wasn't like that. He walked with another mindset: slow, watching, listening, not invading.

And yes, I learned mushrooms. But more than that, I learned a way to be in the world.

I learned *llenegues*. There are white ones and black ones. The good ones are the black ones—*mocoses*—the slimy ones. That sticky shine. The white ones? Forget it.

And when we found a good spot, my father didn't go crazy. It wasn't: run, fill the basket. It was: cut them properly, take what you need, leave what must stay, respect the place. And above all: don't walk around marking the path like you're announcing it on a loudspeaker.

Of course there were *rovellons* too—the famous ones everyone knows. But my father was clear: “The black *llenegues* are much better.” With time, I agreed. There are flavors you don't learn on the internet. There are flavors the forest teaches you.

We also found *ous de reig*—“king's eggs.” Just the name makes you happy. When you find them good, they look like treasure.

But that's where the hard lesson comes in: they can be confused with an *Amanita*. And then my father became serious. No jokes. *Amanita phalloides*. Deadly. The forest doesn't forgive mistakes.

You don't improvise with certain things. Either you know, or you don't touch. And without realizing it, that stayed with me for many parts of life.

Then there are the *trompetes de la mort*—black trumpets. The name sounds scary, but they are amazing. Dark, hidden, camouflaged under dry leaves. Sometimes you look and you see nothing.

And then my father crouches, moves two leaves, and there it is: a small miracle. That taught me something—often the best things are not in plain sight. You have to know how to look. And you have to slow down.

And there were those other ones—long, sponge-shaped—ones you must boil and throw the water away because the water is toxic. *Múrgoles* (morels). Delicious. But dangerous if you try to be clever.

Boil them. Throw the water away. Then cook them properly. Another lesson: even good things, if you don't treat them with respect, can hurt you.

People think mushroom hunting is just filling a basket. No. Most days, if you came back with half a kilo, that was already a good day. Half a kilo.

And there was no drama. My father didn't complain. He didn't say: not enough. He said, calm, like someone who understands the place: “The forest gives what it gives.” And you learn to be grateful. To value simple things.

And it wasn't only the ground. It was the whole world. I discovered a world I didn't know.

Animals I didn't even know existed. Opossums—I called everything “rats,” hahaha. “Look, a rat!” And my father: “That's not a rat.” Foxes that pass like shadows. Wild boars—better to admire them from far away. Squirrels jumping branch to branch like fear doesn't exist.

And genets. The genets shocked me. I didn't know they existed. They look like an elegant, strange cat with spots, like a mini leopard. When you realize your own country has animals like that and you never knew, a good kind of humility hits you.

It makes you think: how many things don't I know? How many things happen next to me that I don't see because my head is elsewhere?

And the birds… I can't name a hundred of them, but one stayed with me: the *mallerenga blava* (blue tit). Small, blue and yellow, nervous, alive.

And then, the simplest and greatest moment: snack time.

We'd stop on a rock. Bread. Cheese. Maybe a bit of *fuet*. Nothing fancy.

And instead of talking just to talk, we were there. Breathing. Listening.

Wind in the leaves. Branches cracking. The ground sounding different depending on whether it's dry leaves or wet soil. A bird singing far away.

And then my father says: “Do you hear that song?”

Me: “Yes.”

And him: “That's a linnet.” (*pardillo*.)

That's it. One sentence. But that taught me more than many hours in a classroom. Because it was real learning. Learning by watching. Learning by listening. Learning by being.

Sometimes I think school fills your head, but it doesn't teach you how to be present.

In the forest, with my father, I learned how to be present.

And then something incredible happened. One year we picked so many mushrooms that I paid a full year of university.

A year of university paid with mushrooms. With mud on my boots, with silence, with patience.

To some people that sounds like a story. But it's real. And it made one thing clear to me: knowledge has value. Skill has value. Respect for nature has value. And patience—when it meets real experience—can give you real results.

Now, for reasons of life, I'm by the sea. And I don't reject the sea. It has its beauty. It has its moments.

But the sea is the same every day. The forest wasn't.

The forest was a living book. Every afternoon you learned something: a new mushroom, a different sound, a footprint, an animal passing, a song, a cloud, a smell. And your father next to you, saying just enough.

And here comes the hard part to explain: how can you have a divided heart?

Because one part of me is here, in the present, doing my life.

But another part stayed up there. Between trees. With my father. In silence.

And when I say “silence,” I don't mean absence of life. It's the opposite. It's the silence that lets you hear life.

The problem is that in the city there is so much noise you stop hearing anything—outside and inside.

In the forest I learned not to take more than I need. Not to rush. Not to think I'm smarter than nature. Not to confuse treasure with poison.

I learned to accept that there are half-kilo days and there are miracle days.

I learned to be grateful. To be present.

And I'll say it clearly: beyond learning mushrooms, it was a life lesson.

Where is the essence of life?

I don't think it's in running. Or shouting. Or showing off.

I think it's in things like this: sitting on a rock with your father, eating a piece of bread and cheese, and learning to recognize a linnet by its song.

I think it's in respect. In patience. In learning how to look. In learning how to listen. In valuing what is simple.

And maybe that's why, even if the sea has me here, my heart keeps climbing back to the mountain.

Because up there I didn't only learn mushrooms.

Up there, I learned how to live.