Dear Mr. Miranda

 

Dear Mr. Miranda,

 

I admit I was late to board the Hamilton train.  I didn’t want to get caught up in all the hype, jumping on the bandwagon for the “greatest musical of our time” kind of thing.  So I put off listening to the songs despite everyone I knew saying how amazing it was. 

 

I am a costumed interpreter (CI) at an historic home here in Louisville.  The people who owned the house where I reenact were friends with our founders. George Rogers Clark and his brother, William Clark, and their friends and relatives were mighty unto themselves. The older brothers fought with Washington and Hamilton and Lafayette.  They knew Madison and Jefferson and Burr.  In fact, Aaron Burr visited Locust Grove in 1806 when he was “taking a leave’” from Washington after the duel that killed Hamilton. 

 

About a month ago, our CIs were asked to attend the preview showing of "The Making of Hamilton" down at the Kentucky Center for the Arts, sponsored by PBS/KET.  We were doing a joint promotion of all things related to the musical here in Louisville.  I donned my best Regency dress and put my hair in a turban and proceeded to spend the evening inviting people to Locust Grove to cross the same threshold that had once been crossed by Aaron Burr.

 

When time came for the showing, I joined the rest of the attendees and went into the theater to watch.  I admit it….I was hooked.  From the very first song, I could not get your words out of my head.  I came home and immediately pulled the music up on You Tube and began listening non-stop.  I watched the documentary again, this time with my husband, and he became hooked as well.  We loved how you changed the lens through which we view history.  How the players are all people of color.  How you made our past become present.  It was incredible.

 

I don’t know your politics, but these past couple of weeks have been rough for me.  I’m a white, middle-aged, Catholic woman, living in upper middle class suburbia, and I am devastated by the election and all of the hate that has risen to the surface because of it.  It has been hard to wake up every day with the knowledge that our new president is someone like Donald Trump. 

 

Today, I decided to put my headphones on and go mulch the leaves in my lawn before the cold sets in.  I set my music to the Hamilton tracks and went to work.  As I walked back and forth across my yard, your words became so present to me that I began to cry.  

When Hamilton says to Burr, “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what will you fall for?” I realized I will need to be willing to stand up for what I believe, even more now that the election has unleashed so much bigotry.

 

As the Schyler sisters sang, “Look around.  Look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now,” I realized that for all that has gone wrong in my life these past few weeks, I really AM lucky to be alive right now.  In this time.  In this country. 

When President Washington sang, “Teach them how to say goodbye,” I thought of President Obama welcoming Trump into the White House last week, teaching all of us that we don’t always get our way and for this experiment in self-government to continue to succeed, we have to look to our past for examples of greatness and follow those examples.

 

When “The World Turned Upside Down” came on, I thought, “Yeah.  That’s about how I feel right now.”  My world was turned upside down last week, but I took heart from the song. 

 

The whole time I was working, listening to the music, I kept thinking about my ancestors who fought in the Revolution and my ancestors who left Europe in the last century to come to America.  I kept thinking that we are greater than the hate.  We are better than what we appear to be right now.  I thought about how our ancestors sacrificed so much for the freedom they so desperately desired, and I became more determined to stand up for those freedoms today.  Your music made me feel empowered to speak up going forward, to not be afraid to stand for the rights of everyone and to call out the wrongs that I see when I see them.

 

I’ve not seen Hamilton, but I hope to someday whenever it comes near Louisville.  I know I will cry the whole time.  Thank you for such a powerful gift to the world. 

I Am Voting

I am voting for my grandmothers, both of whom were born before women could vote. One, raised in France, was sent to every school a girl could attend because her father wanted his children to have the best education possible and did not want their gender to be a barrier. The other, raised on a farm in rural Kentucky, went to a one-room school house and never graduated from high school. Both of them became productive members of society and raised good families and daughters who believed women could do anything. 

I am voting for my parents, who had only daughters, who taught us that we were capable and smart and could do anything we wanted. My parents, who raised us to believe that everyone was equal; that discrimination was wrong; that the color of one's skin didn't matter; that we should share our bounty with the less fortunate; that we should take care of the Earth that God made for us; that is it okay to disagree, but that it is not okay to be disagreeable.

I am voting for my dad, who was a precinct captain, and who let me canvass the neighborhood with him every election. I hung out the car window, putting flyers in mailboxes as he drove through the streets where we lived. My dad, who worked the polls every year, who got up at 4:30 a.m. to drive into town to get doughnuts for the workers and stayed until the end of the day. My dad, who would bring the election printouts home, spread them on the kitchen table, and sometimes let us call in the results to democratic headquarters. 

I am voting for my mom, who took us to the polls with her; who let us pull the lever to shut the curtain and then flip the smaller levers to vote for our candidates. My mom, who didn't go to college, but who made sure that her daughters did. My mom, who worked in a school for nearly 30 years as a teacher's aide, and raised hundreds of children and was dearly loved by all.

I am voting for my husband, who is a member of our armed services, who has spent 25 years defending our freedoms. My husband, who has been my partner for a quarter of a century, who believes that my job as a stay-at-home mom is equally important to our family as his; my husband, who is helping me to raise a son who believes that women are equal and our daughters, who believe that they are equal. 

I am voting for my son, who is seeing that the world is not always a nice place; who is trying to make it better; who stands up for his sisters and for women who are marginalized; who will lead his peers as the next generation of young men become old enough to make a difference.

I am voting for my daughters, who are beautiful and smart and can do anything they set their minds to. I am voting for my older daughter, who just last month, was called "sweetie" and "dear heart" by a male professor at a college she visiting to see if she wanted to attend in order to study chemistry. I am voting for my younger daughter, who doesn't take any crap from anybody, who once told a boy who said something mean about one of her friends, "That's my friend, and if you can't be nice to her, then I don't think we need to go out anymore."

I am voting for my 88-year old aunt, who I am taking to the polls on Tuesday. She needs a walker to get around. She has macular degeneration and is nearly deaf, but she wants to vote for the first woman president. 

Finally, I am voting for the best qualified candidate to come along in many generations. A woman who understands the intricacies of the world we live in today. A woman who is cool under pressure and compassionate to the less fortunate. A woman who knows what it is like to have to make tough decisions and who won't make them lightly. A woman who believes that America is already great and who will make it even better. 

I am voting for Hillary Clinton. I hope you will too.