Universal Truth

I received a lovely email from Jen, the Harper (who is also a knitter), asking if she could share the sentiments of my blog post A Perfect Piece with her harpist friends.  Her request made me think about how there are certain universal truths in all artistic forms.  First among these is that joy exists in the simple, beautiful, and familiar.  It is true whether we're talking about a piece of knitting or a piece of music.

I am not a musician, but my daughter Elizabeth is. She and her violin can make music that brings me to tears.  She works hard to master a new piece, painstakingly going over each difficult area and position shift until it seems effortless.  Practice is not always joyful.  I have seen her frustrated and tense, willing here hands and arms and body to learn and remember.  At the end of each practice session, however, she would bring her violin to her chin and dissolve into a beautifully simple piece she'd learned years before--a piece she could play without thinking--a piece that relaxed and energized her and reminded her of why she loved the violin.  Her face was a picture of joy, and no complicated Paganini composition could match the beauty of the music that flowed through her and those relatively simple pieces. 


I think we often forget that the point of knitting, or any artistic endeavor, is to bring and joy to our life.  Beauty is a result of that joy which often does come from what is simple and easy and relaxing.  Knit what you love because like music, your knitting should feed your soul.