At first, my students are hesitant to leave the trail. 

“Come on!” I urge them. “You’ve got to see this.”

I have found a cluster of puffball mushrooms, big and round as bowling balls. They are the color and texture of untoasted marshmallows.

The students pick their way through the snags of hardwood saplings, over roots and downed limbs, until they come to the place where my colleague — a biology professor — is holding one of the giant white orbs, crumbs of soil still clinging to its underside.

We wonder at the sound the puffball makes when we tap its surface, so much like the hollow “thwop” of a ripe watermelon. Someone sinks their fingers into its center and tears it in two. The mushroom is white through and through. Its earthy scent fills the air. 

One student asks, “Can I touch it?” After she presses her index finger into the soft interior, she looks up, surprised, and exclaims, “It feels like angel food cake!”

It is pure joy to be here with these students in this place. 

I think of the hidden threads of mycelia beneath our feet. The puffballs are just the fruiting bodies of vast subterranean networks of fungi. And what about our bodies? Bathed in the yellow light of autumn. Enveloped in the perfume of fallen leaves. Warmed by our uphill climb to this spot. I can almost see the shimmer of the strands connecting us to each other and this place.

Have a Bright Spot to share? Send it to Managing Editor Julia Lerner (lernerj@denison.edu). Tell us about the moment that made you smile in under 200 words, and try to include a photograph. We’ll add it to our growing list of Bright Spots on TheReportingProject.org!