Blanket and Crib

NPR News puts out a great hourly podcast for free that recaps the days top stories. I download it before I leave work for the day and spend the first five minutes of my drive catching up on what’s going outside my little circle of existence. I listen to the stories of autocrats unwilling to step down as their countries crumbles around them, politicians embroiled in scandal and endless bickering, unhinged gunmen, and all the rest. Sometimes, it’s depressing, other times I can stay detached, but most times, I’m left wondering how people end up doing the things they do. I know it’s pointless to think about it – everyone’s a hero in their own mind, but lately, the question has come up more often. As I stare at Violet over her bottle, I’m left wondering how these people can grow from a charming bundle of fuzzy hair and chubby thighs, not unlike what I hold in my arms, into the people that I hear about on the news. It happens everyday, but if you think about it, the transformation is astonishing. And then the other day, after I was finished listening to my little blast of 5-minute news, I was searching my iPod for some palette cleansing music. I ended up choosing an album by the band Okkervill River, a band from Austin, Texas that writes some great, literate heart-on-your-sleeve music. Their song “Blanket and Crib” was the first one to come on, and about halfway through the song, these lyrics came out of the speaker, and they seemed appropriate to what I’ve been thinking about:

And my mother once said “Son, remember this, no matter what someone did: that they once were just a kid at breast and in bib, in blanket and crib. So just reach inside yourself and find the part that still needs help, find that part in someone else and you’ll do good,” so I thought that I would…

Great advice, no? Maybe I can get that embroidered on a pillow for Violet, or at least send a copy to that special someone in Washington, DC.

108 days old