I am not what you call an “outdoorsy” sort of gal. I cannot make fire out of twigs or catch fish with my bare hands. Sure, I went to Camp DeSoto like many of the other girls from my grade school in Jackson, Mississippi. While there, Anna Glen and I managed to get our canoe stuck in the lake and we had to be towed back to shore. Maybe even more humiliating, I burst into tears every time the counselors tried to hoist me on a horse. Not a great start for any future forays into the wilderness.

Some ten years ago, when I was well into my thirties, I did go on a hiking trip in North Carolina. I even managed to log a few miles of the Appalachian Trail. But we spent the nights in lovely inns along the way and the folks leading the tour toted our luggage to and from the air-conditioned van. You get the picture. That said, you might not think I’m the kind of woman who would give a hoot about nature, but I do. I care quite a lot, actually, because the great outdoors, like an exquisite verse of poetry or an afternoon spent with my elderly mother, connect me to God.

Just this week I saw a doe and her fawn dart across Abbott Martin Road in Green Hills. Shockingly, traffic was light, so I was able to stop my car for a few seconds and stare. That’s all. Two deer dashing from one yard to the next, a middle-aged woman gawking from her Subaru. But it was enough, for it allowed me to consider something outside myself, something bigger and grander than my nagging career concerns and my never-ending list of errands. And even though the encounter was brief, the feeling of wonder followed me all the way home.

 Amy Lyles Wilson