Joy That Did Not Wait for Permission

Somewhere this week, joy arrived uninvited and found you occupied.

It was probably something small. A thing you looked at for a second and then looked away from, because the list was there and the list is always there. A moment when someone said something worth laughing at and you laughed, but briefly, and then went back to whatever had your attention before.

I am not telling you to abandon your schedule. I am a cardiologist. I respect schedules. I schedule things.

I am asking you to leave one door unlocked. One place in the day, or the week, or the hour, where you are not performing toward something. Where you are simply available. Where joy can find you in the room you are actually in.

The eight-year-old in the rain was not wasting his time. He was available. That is all. The rain arrived and he was there to meet it.

In Ekegusii, *timoka* means to rest, but active rest — the rest of a person who has stopped performing and is present to what the present contains. Not sleep exactly, not passivity. The presence that becomes available when the next task has been set down. The elders called it that because they understood that the ability to receive is a practice, not a reflex. You have to cultivate the capacity to be met.

The eight-year-old in the rain was practicing *timoka* without knowing its name. You can start now.

You were built for this kind of meeting. Let it happen.

— Job