Nature Calls Us Back

by Nicolette L. Cagle, August 28, 2026

Some days I walk through the woods with my head tucked down, my feet walking a familiar path by memory, and my thoughts aware submerged in thought.

Often, I’m mentally choreographing my to-do-list or rehashing a conversation or weighing whether my behavior needs to change in response to an issue involving weighty ethical trade-offs, such as AI use or travel. Other times, I’m ruminating about some injustice or trying to figure out how to make a situation right that maybe can never be put right. These ponderings never need to be as all-consuming as they are; typically, the answers are clear from the start. But my mind looses the path and circles through the deep woods of my mind instead.

I hate walking through the rich Piedmont woods lost in a shadow forest of thoughts. I regret missing the towering fungi emerging from the late summer ground. I rue having ignored the insistent calls of the woodpeckers and nuthatches. And I ache at having missed the concentric perfection of a spiny spider’s glinting web.

Yet, nature has a way of calling me back to the present when I’m stuck in this state. Today, I was lost in thought, huffing up a hill, returning from the serene river. I sensed a presence peripherally and I looked up, staring into the eyes of a large doe only four feet away. I started at the sight of her, which startled her in turn. She ran ten feet further away. Then we regarded one another with mutual curiosity. I apologized for my lack of presence, and she, I think, accepted my apology. She reminded me that one of her many roles on this planet is to call lost souls like me back to the wondrous present.

Photo: Deer that I have seen on past walks, Nicolette L. Cagle (2019)