Stress is a funny thing. It has the ability to take a rather average little matter and magnify it, creating a gigantic hurdle blocking your path, hindering all forward motion. Your only option is to LEAP, and so you do, and there on the other side is another hurdle. And then another, and another, and another, and they’re coming faster and getting taller and so you leap leap leap until your stamina fades and you know in a jack flash jumping you will catch a toe and down you will go and you will lie there, a big exhausted heap. Spent. Done.

It happens to all of us.

I drove home tonight thinking of the hurdles in front of me as I make a long trip this week. I stepped outside with my sweet dog , and for no real reason at all looked down to find this.

There it was, a little love offering so tiny it’s a miracle I saw it at all.

Do you know what happened next? I came into the kitchen and stood for a moment, looking toward the pond. Lined up across the edge of the yard was a convocation of ducks, including the misfit white duck that had for so long been abandoned by all of duckdom, including—most recently—his (her?) adopted mallard family. But there they all were, enjoying a time of quiet fellowship.

And then, just out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hummingbird. I haven’t even filled the feeder this summer. Not one time, I thought to myself, and smiled that the little creature hasn’t given up on me.

And there, below the window. Could that be a rabbit?

It was nose to nose with a squirrel, but before I could get a shot the squirrel scampered away, then stopped, turned, and seemed to make a pretty strong statement to the bunny.

Or was this for my benefit?

The entire scene made me smile as I looked from the hummingbird to the squirrel to the rabbit, thinking of how there is always something going on in the world, some kind of drama. And with that, the white duck stood up, turned in my direction, then plopped right back down to face me.

There seems to be a theme here, I thought, surrounded by all these animals who showed up to … what? Show me? Confront me?

I will get in that car and drive. And if I need to, I will jump. And then I will jump again. And I will try to remember that we are all here on this earth together, creatures great and small, sometimes loving, sometimes leaping, always simply doing the best we can.

And that, my friends, is surely enough.