I am on Monhegan Island in Maine for a couple of weeks. It is a place Gary and I have spent time for the past ten years, finding here a sense of respite and calm that soothes my soul. Mostly what I do here is sit on rocks or cliffs, and watch the ocean and her inhabitants go about their lives.
Yesterday, I was sitting in a place called Gull Cove, on rocks pretty near the shoreline. What looked like a floating log appeared on the water moving toward shore, but as it got closer, I realized that it was actually not a log at all, but rather a mother duck and her long line of progeny following closely behind. As they moved into the cove, the little ones started attempting to tip forward putting their bills under the water, desperately trying to capture a bite of something yummy. The problem was, that they were so buoyant they kept bobbing back up to the surface, often with quite a bit of force and a big splash!
The mother duck led them up to the very top edge of a rock where they started jostling for position. As they each tried to get themselves settled on the rock’s ridge line, they kept bumping into one another, and inevitably one or two of the little balls of fluff tumbled down the side of the rather large rock. The first time this happened, I gasped, worried that the little ones who had lost their place in the line-up would be hurt or worse, but as soon as they stopped rolling, they righted themselves and started climbing right back up to the top of the rock.
Soon, the ducklings were lined up in a row along the edge of the rock, happily nestled next to one another. Calm reigned for a little while.
It was not very long before the mother decided it was time to get up and move again. As soon as she climbed off the rock, her little ones followed, a line of fluff balls waddling and tumbling down into the water. As they paddled around in the cove, they started practicing their bobbing again, dipping their little bills in the water, and amazingly soon, actually diving down under water where they stayed for longer than I thought possible. Somehow, in the course of a very little amount of time, they had figured out how to stay under water long enough to achieve their goal of finding some delectable snack. Maybe it was that period of rest that allowed their little duck minds to open up to the next lesson?
I sat on the edge of the cove for more than an hour, watching the ducks until the mothers began to lead them out into the deeper waters of the ocean. Waves washed over them, scattering the ducklings every which way. I worried that some of them would be lost in the fray, but eventually mother and babies were reunited beyond the roughest waves and they set off to their next destination.
Reflecting on what I had seen, I was struck by the resilience and resolve of those little ducklings. No more than a ball of fluff, each of them had a fierce determination to accomplish every new task. It didn’t matter if they bobbed to the surface when they tried to dive, they just kept at it until they figured out how to manage the mechanics. It didn’t matter if they got knocked off the rock by a restless sibling, they just got their feet under them and climbed up again.
I know that we humans have far more tasks that we need to accomplish in order to achieve competence and adulthood, but I think we can learn from our fluffy companions that a little resilience and a whole lot of resolve goes a long way. If we think we can, then chances are, we can!
