Today is my younger son Paul's twentieth birthday. As Tom said last night, "we are now out of the teenage racket."

It is amazing to me, the certain love from and for this beloved son and friend, who twenty years ago was born at four in the morning during the first ice storm of the season. He was a cozy baby, and a sweet and moody little boy, and a sad and overwrought high schooler, and now he is a tall bearded man, passionate about music and theater and the wilderness--excited, volatile, loving, engaged--but he still calls home every other day or so, for the pleasure of hearing my voice. That in itself is a miracle, at least for me.

We are separated by hundreds of miles today, but we both know we are thinking of one another.

Much love and pride to you, my dear boy, today and every day.