Idleness can be productive.

 

We went out for a Friday fish fry that’s a big thing here. Went to a place called Moonlighting. It’s a little place off the beaten path hidden in some small town that we happen to fall upon one day. So we thought we’d go back. We ordered cod, you get a choice of potatoes, coleslaw and some marbled rye bread on the side. And of course a beer. I agree they do have good fish frys like they claim.

Behind us they have this old crumpled American flag in a frame. They found it in the walls when they renovated the place and kept it in remembrance that history starts here. I felt a little patriotic sitting here wondering who might have sat at this very spot at some point in time.

I was reading Solitude Inner Visions in American Art.

“Early romantics and transcendentalists solitude was a subject of those who observe the life of pioneer immigrant settlers around the turn of the century and during the great depression.”

The subject of solitude has been probed by American writers. Some things that Henry David thoreau wrote I found worth repeating. 

“A high intellectual level is not a prerequisite for solitude.”

“One of the beauties of solitude is its availability to every person.”

“To be in the company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

“A man thinking or working is always alone.”

That idleness can be productive; and that one could go far by staying put.

The painting above is called Black in Deep Red, 1957 by Mark Rothko