Dear Tucker,
It's been a whirlwind of a weekend! You spent another birthday on stage, where it seems like the light shines on you and out of you at the same time. Once they're grown, most adults are mainly walking, talking versions of the stories they've told themselves. I'm so grateful several of your chapters are being scribed in Grandview's musical theatre department.
When I listen hard enough, I can still hear your two year old voice singing Super Boy and the Invisible Girl. And I remember her with you on March 7th too.
At seventeen you are mostly shiny and sharp on the outside ("that square jaw, those broad shoulders" according to Scuttle). You are able to sustain conversation on global politics and aquatic biology, but I like your fragile, vulnerable side too, full of moods and obsessions. If we had been high school kids at the same time, I'd have been psyched to be friends with you.
When you were ten I noted in your birthday letter that you seemed to live outside any whirlpool of urgencies. That's still true, time far more philosophy than rule. You are a perfectly lanky work in prog-mess with a strong nothing-is-beyond-salvation mindset, because of course anything can be fixed with duct tape or hot sauce. You are years away from cognitive maturation, that ripple of meat in the frontal lobe responsible for impulse control, at the age when adolescents tend to roll the dice and roll their eyes, learning to keep promises and secrets, working on the connection between effort and outcome. Someday I hope you'll understand the ultimate expression of love can sound like nagging? As you get older, I feel like I see more of your humanness, and I hope you see more of mine. You are a smashing success in so many ways, brave and kind better than intelligent or handsome. You have an ear attuned to melody, in poetry and song and science, a presence that can change the temperature in the room, a smile marquee bright.
You go around a lot like Prince Eric, making the whole world feel like an ocean of love -- and what a way to drown! Our job -- to witness you take off, swim deeper, to be the buoy along the shoreline -- feels like a gift. As much as you think I love you, I love you more.
Mom