Time for a Deep Breath

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Wow, March is sort of crazy around here. Not only do we have the NCAA Tourney but it's also time for our baseball draft and I'm always getting my side of beef this time of year.

For a guy who likes control the days fly by in a frenzy of sorts that screams of being out of control.

Remembering my Yoga instructions I was trying to listen to my breaths all day on Saturday.

And then I saw the story of the two teenagers who shot the toddler in the face somewhere near Atlanta, I think, and it pulled me right back to that feeling that the whole world is a really messed up place, and being able to chat hoops and trade baseball picks, and load the freezer is a real luxury.

Not to be ignored as anything other than a blessing.

One of the most difficult parts of being a writer is being able to imagine the scene.

I was, unfortunately, able to really grasp the terror of that mother as she was confronted. I thought about how she felt telling the two idiots before her that she didn't have any money.

I imagined her fear as they told her that they'd shoot her baby.

Deep in her heart she must have thought that there was no way they'd really do such a thing.

But one of them did.

We've had a couple of child murders up here over the last couple of months. Boyfriends who are overwhelmed with crying kids. They beat the kids to stop the crying.

But the Atlanta thing is something totally different, isn't it? The stories are equally tragic, but lines are being crossed.

It's hard to dismiss pure evil.

So I took another deep breath and went over my brackets with two of the boys sitting beside me. We teased one another and laughed at a couple of the remarks that Sir Charles was saying on the pregame show.

"Wow," Did you see what happened to that baby?" Jake asked as he negotiated his way through his Twitter feed.

"Wow is about it," I said.

There was nothing brilliant to say. I took another deep breath.

There's just a real meanness in this world.

"Who you got winning it all in your first bracket?" Sam asked me.

Back to things we could understand.

"Indiana," I said.

Take a breath. Say a prayer. Push the meanness down.

Out of my mind.

No way to control things.

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