Connective Tissue

Raised in the woods, I have had a lifelong love of fungi: mushrooms, spores, rootlets, mold.

When I was sixteen, I fell mysteriously ill. I spent the next seven years in and out of hospitals, experimental trials, and doctors’ offices. No one could figure out why my organs were failing, or why my body systems seemed to be growing increasingly fragile.

Alongside this physical initiation, my love of fungi met my love of philosophy at Bard College. Obsessed with Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of rhizomes, I encountered research into mycorrhizal systems. I began to write obsessively about the deep mycelial networks in forests and how they form the foundation of soil health and ecological biodiversity. I fell in love with the idea of fungi as ecological connective tissue.

The moment of wild coincidence came when, thanks to geneticists at Weill Cornell in New York City, I was finally properly diagnosed with a connective tissue disease that explained my long health decline.

It was dizzying to realize that I had been obsessed with fungi, the connective tissue of the soil and ecosystems, only to discover that my own body was lacking healthy connective tissue. It was as if my genetic condition had keyed me to my intellectual and environmental love affair before I had even received a diagnosis.