Knitting, while listening to music, has been my relaxation in the evenings after long days of writing and editing. I finished my green Gansey sweater a week ago, and started knitting a Brora shawl (it's a Brooklyn Tweed pattern) from a lovely fingering-weight wool. It's been going pretty well, or so I thought, until I looked closely under the light last night and saw a fairly significant mistake, oh, maybe 18 rows back. (I took the picture above several nights ago-- the mistake was already there but I didn't see it.) Dammit. I put the work away for an hour, read a book, and then, before bed, ripped out the last two nights-worth of knitting, back to the problem row, corrected it, and went to sleep.
Yesterday I had felt like I was nearly done with the manuscript, but after lying in bed for a while this morning, thinking about it, I've realized I need to make some additional changes, and they may take quite a while. I was ok with that, in fact, anxious to come up to the studio and get going.
This wasn't always the case. I've changed from a more slap-dash person to the way I am now, not in a flurry of flying yarn, but over time. Maybe it's often that way in people who have a certain innate facility: people who can "get by" without a lot of studying, or practicing, or editing, or wiping out the paint from the day before, and still end up with a pretty good result. But at some point, you either stay that way, or you realize you have to ramp it up, with a combination of patience, determination, self-observation and self-discipline.
Last night I thought about my father, who is fond of saying "a thing worth doing at all is worth doing well," my online friend Frances who just frogged thirty rows of a complicated cabled sweater because of a mistake; the top musicians who practice the same passage over and over for days and weeks; the authors I most admire who simply don't stop writing until they are sure they have done the best they possibly can. I don't think what I am talking about here is perfectionism, exactly, because there is no such thing as "perfect" in the arts, and perfection alone is not necessarily what we're after. It's not really obsessive behavior, either -- in the sense of compulsive repetition -- though I'm sure some people see it that way. I admire persistence: people who want to do their best, and don't lie to themselves about what is "good enough" when they know that with more effort, they can do better. You do it more for yourself than for anyone else. It's a quiet, inner feeling, not some sort of ego-centered, outward push -- because after a while you realize that that sort of effort doesn't get you to the same place.
The "Terra" shawl. This has a mistake in the garter rows, too, but I discovered it so late that I decided to forget about it.
I think I learned this lesson of going further in two ways: from having a business, and taking piano lessons as an adult. Somewhere along the line, I accepted as truth the criticism I had defended against: that I wasn't taking my design work as far as it needed to go. It was good enough, but it could be better. Instead of fighting and resisting, I started to just buckle down and listen to the inner voice that said, "It's not quite done," and not stop until I had found a solution or an answer to whatever wasn't fully resolved. Satisfying the client was easier than satisfying myself, and I had to do the latter.
And, in my late thirties, I listened soberly to my wise, older piano teacher who said one day, "When you first came to me, I thought you just wanted to play fast and learn a lot of music, but you didn't want to put in the work to really get all the notes." I couldn't argue; she was absolutely right, and it had always been the way I had approached music. I liked to practice, because it was fun and relaxing, but I had always worked just enough to be able to fix the difficulties noted in the previous lesson and make a little more progress; when I was young, that was enough, it was pretty easy for me. But now, twenty years later, why was I there? My teacher waited until she thought I'd be receptive to hearing what she had to say, and then she dropped that one sentence in my lap, like a little subversive bomb. She didn't need to say any more. Was it worth it to me to work harder? It turned out that it was. I was never going to become a really excellent pianist, with fantastic technique -- I was too old, and didn't have the time or desire to devote myself to such a goal anyway -- but I became a better musician. I improved a lot, taking the time to figure out exactly what was on the page and how to play it. With better technique and more accuracy, we could turn to the questions of interpretation that I found more interesting; in other words, it was possible to go both wider and deeper. My teacher held me to a higher standard than before, helping me with greater engagement and interest, and I found much greater satisfaction in my practice and my playing -- but her lesson reverberated far beyond music in my life.
That question, "what am I doing here?" is important. I'm never going to be a master artist-knitter like my friends Alison or Rachel or Judith, capable of creating incredible, intricate lace shawls -- and it's only recently that I got more careful about correcting mistakes and tried to improve my skills by choosing harder patterns. But I have no aspirations or illusions about myself as a knitter, whereas art and writing are the areas to which I'm really dedicated.
I'm the first one to say that everybody has talent, regardless of what we were told as children, and to encourage people who once drew or dreamed of playing an instrument to begin again. Any art form is primarily about creativity, and satisfaction in the doing/making -- if it isn't fun and joyful, then why do it? The thing is, that once you get over the initial hurdles that kept you from starting, and you gain some facility, then you have to decide how serious you're going to be. For an amateur, it may simply be about pleasure and satisfaction in the doing, and knowing you are making progress. As a professional, I've had to ask myself that question, at different levels, all my life, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. I don't think I'm going to "retire" as an artist or writer.
People tend to think art is all about talent, but frankly, talent only goes so far. It's like a seed that has been planted; all it represents is potential. Some artists who have early success treat it as a destination, and for the rest of their lives they coast; some become bored. Others, equally talented, never find the same level of success, but they work at their art with dedication and joy all their lives. The best musicians I know, people in their forties and fifties and beyond, still practice for as long as it takes for them to perform confidently, at their peak, and they constantly challenge themselves with new repertoire that stretches their abilities and their understanding. Talent certainly plays a part, but without about a huge amount of hard work, you're balanced on a pinhead -- maybe there's a stretch of days when you dance brilliantly and everybody's dazzled, but sooner or later you're going to fall off. What's required is some sort of crazy combination of stubbornness and passion for the art form itself, driven by an inner search rather than "success" or praise from the outside, that propel you through the painful days of showing up and doing the work, the days when you struggle with doubt, fears and loneliness, the days when you wish you were a "normal" kind of person -- until the work starts to shine with an inner light that you aren't even sure you put there yourself. And when it's finished, you get up and start all over again.
