From one of my all-time favorite wordsmen:

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness. 

– Pablo Neruda

Dear Milo,

One of my first memories of childhood is the sand slipping through my fingers on a San Diego Beach. I am three years old with long braids and blunt bangs and the world has first turned itself on. It’s a beaming sun with booming waves, and the saltwater is spraying my face. I am happy, and loved. I am free. I am three.

This past weekend I saw this same joy in your eyes. You navigated the sand, all the while staggering in those size 7 feet.

The Carmel breeze tousled your hair and you stood at the edge of the water, completely idle. Motionless.

I found myself speechless because never once in your short time on this earth, have you ever stopped moving. In the womb, a thousand iron-clad kicks, and with your first steps, an awkward mad dash.

And now the surfers slip past us in rubbery black suits, only to glide over a roiling dark universe.

I want to tell you as far as your 21-month old eyes can see that this is real. Not a fleeting dream. Not a YouTube clip on my phone. Not merely a doctored photo (filtered, yes). Layer by layer, as the wires fuse in your mind, it will start to make sense. And you’ll begin to grasp the mystery, the beauty, the pain in this world.

But for now we’ll welcome the sand wedged under our nails. We’ll chase each other through sharp blasts of wind. We’ll yell in words that make no sense while the wind lifts our hair for exclamation. And I’ll remember you this way forever.

But I’ll also remember you like this: The boy with the nose that never stops running. The boy who already craves independence. The boy who inspects everything with his hands: abandoned crab shells, soggy tennis balls, strings of seaweed, cigarette butts, and the irresistible clump of “POO”.

I love you Boo.

Your beachbound mother forever.