DownTime

Downtime at Diner © Jim Korpi

“Claudia said, ‘But Mrs. Frankweiler, you should want to learn one new thing every day. We did even at the museum.’
‘No,’ I answered. ‘I don’t agree with that. I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but you never really feel anything with them. It’s hollow.” – The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

A friend, Beth Klaus, relayed this quote when I mentioned the anxiety of feeling like one should always be photographing. Beth said for her photography is a way to escape the “sameness of life,” but that downtime is just as important.

The insightful Mrs. Frankweiler, in the above book, helps Claudia understand that one can not always run away from the sameness and that there is a great importance in dealing with the necessities of everyday living.