I was scrolling through old photographs today and realized how strikingly similar my recent black & white paper-cut artwork is to the Celtic-inspired ink drawings I made ages ago, before I had kids.

Artistic affinities and resonances run deep and surface again and again like runner roots. My artwork even looks like roots, in a tangle, an embrace. So like tumbleweed, my emblem.

 My tattoo wedding ring and tattoo necklace are also infinity symbols (and the marriage is infinite, in its own way – you can cut paper, but not lives).

My ring is here forever and my necklace will garland my pulse even after the heart goes slack.

 There is something reassuring — at least for an expat/ nomad/ drifter such as myself– in perpetuity, in promise, in forever, in lines that twine and knot and become indistinguishable from one another.

My tattoos are a promise that will never fade, wash off, disentangle, get stolen or lost.

Though I mock the ink now, and dream of truly naked skin– a blank canvas to begin again–my skin keeps its promise.