When I first began attempting drawing in ink again, after a hiatus of many years due to my essential tremors, I couldn’t make the brush go anywhere I wanted it to go. It would zag off, leaving me furious with my hands. Then I tried brushing out a shape in clear water and adding drops of ink to it. And I didn’t mind how it looked. I don’t mind how they look.

I can’t fully explain it. Perhaps because the shakiness is not just a seismographic record of the unsteadiness of my hands, it is in large part the inherent randomness of ink dropped in water. That it’s okay if messiness is a part of the process rather than simply a product of my body.