Ching Pong Boink Clang

Remember how I learned quickly during my Never Done year that it was really more of an awareness practice than a go out and do Big Things practice? That I found that as I went through my every day, it was most meaningful when I noticed that I was on the brink of doing something I'd never done, and that I could choose it, or choose the old familiar path? Well I just realized it's the same with joy. Josh and I were walking though the Cleveland airport, a little stunned, exhausted, but also just being in an airport, which we both have a lot of practice at so we were sort of on autopilot (pun intended, and Niel would have loved that pun.) Josh saw it first. He stopped and said, "Oh I love these." I looked and saw what he was talking about and realized, oh I love these too. There's a big one in Logan, and there's one in Boston Children's Hospital I think. So we stopped and we watched the gears turn and the levers push and the pulleys pull and the balls bounce. We chose one ball to follow from top to bottom, and it took a path that required four more to follow it onto that green balance thing on the left -- that has three balls on it in this photo. Many balls went past before any followed the path that led them to our ball. We weren't exactly late for our flight, but we definitely weren't early. But both of us just stood there and waited for that thing to fill up, and then for it to dump all five balls into that green corkscrew, and then whoosh, in a flash, the game was over. So sometimes joy is right there in front of us, and all we have to do is stop and notice.