It's no secret I love Andrew Bird. Literally had he asked me to drop everything and go on tour with him when I met him last year, I'm sorry everyone I would've left behind, but I would've taken off so fast no one would be the wiser. So but WHY do I love the great, seemingly eccentric, intellectual musician? Well because I'm sucker for one thing. Damn if I don't fall for musicians every time. But the real reason? Have you listened to his lyrics??? He writes the most eloquent songs I've maybe ever heard. When he steadily croons "I dreamt you were the cosmonaut of the space between our chairs, and I was the cartographer of the tangles in your hair" to quote Rachel Zoe "I die!" Okay, so no one tell Andrew Bird I quoted Rachel Zoe while discussing his music. I'm pretty sure that completely offend him. In the same song I just referenced "Armchairs", the ever wise Mr. Bird sings that "you need to learn to love the ebb just like the flow." Pretty savvy eh? I think so. I'm also a big fan of "grab[bing] hold of [my] bootstraps and pull[ing] like hell" but I digress. The reason I was listening to this song today, despite it's overwhelming swells and beautiful melodies, is that I was thinking of the people in Boston who suffered the worst Monday I can think of in a while. I wondered to myself how someone handles a situation like that. When you start thinking about it, there are LOT of different arenas that need to be taken care of on a day like this. Of course there's the obvious, caring for the injured and for those whose loved ones have passed away. Then there are also the people who knew no one in the blast but are still shaken just the same. Hell, I would be. After such a catastrophic event, someone has to come in and clean it all up. I hate to be dismal, but if you start really thinking about what all that potentially entails, it's horrific to say the least. Then there are all the emergency personnel who have to be organized to protect and serve the public. And I know no one is really a fan of politicians, but regardless, we've entrusted these people with our safety, and now everyone from a patrolman all the way up to the POTUS are scrambling to find the who and why behind all this and punish those responsible and find a way to try to ensure this won't happen again. And what about the business owners whose shops and restaurants were destroyed? And the children who are now afraid to walk down the street? I wonder, how is it that these people muster up the gumption to pull up their bootstraps and learn to love the ebb just like the flow? There is now a permanent shift in their perspective of the world. The ways in which they view literally everything will alter. I'm not quite sure how one might digest that. To go back to Andrew Bird, at the end of the song he talks about how "we'll get back at them all, with epoxy and pair of pliers." I get what he's saying here, but I wonder, what will be enough for these people? How will they move on with their lives? What do the mothers tell their children when they ask why Daddy will never be home again in time for dinner?