I am looking at my wedding ring. It tells a story. it tells the the story of the tension between singularity and plurality. This is why i consider myself a “traditionalist”.
I remember when I received the weld spot on my wedding ring. It was while I was Ironworking for Lewis Herrera. I was tack welding a jig for some job… near the end of the day… very mundane work… no fuss, no grand piece of art. it was “just” a jig. a “tool” which was created for one specific job and would be discarded after the job was done. I was rushing along tacking my jig together (without gloves, because whats the chance that I would injure myself from a few tack welds) and suddenly… INTENSE PAIN on my left hand… on my ring finger.
OH MY GOD IT WON’T STOP! FUCK IT HURTS FUCK FUCK FUCK!
A piece of weld spatter had stuck to my 18K white gold wedding band and had supper heated it and burned a semi-circular scar into my finger. I couldn’t flick it off, I couldn’t make the pain stop until the red hot ring of fire had cooled on its own. Then I thought of plunging my hand into the quench tank, but by then it was already cooled.

The pain is gone and even the scare is mostly gone, but the spot of hard steel remains on the soft tissue of my wedding ring.
It reminds me of the sacrifice that my beloved has made for me to follow my dreams and how she has never once held it against me or used them as cannon fodder for her rage.

Thank you my sweet. I love you with all my Heart!

-john