"Why do you like Hamilton so much?"

I’ve been asked this question so many times that I've lost count. I'm not someone who obsessively knows about history, or identifies as extremely patriotic, or listens to hip hop and rap in my free time, so it's a question that’s asked with genuine curiosity. Sometimes the question is tinted with a bit of bewilderment. People see my Spotify feed repeat the tracks over and over, scroll through multiple Instagram posts about it, and widen their eyes as I know the details of the PBS documentary by heart and wonder, “Why?”. In some ways, Hamilton has become "my thing," so much so that my students and I once had a conversation where everyone named their own “Hamilton” -- something that they reeeeeeeeeeeally like a lot.

"Why do you like Hamilton so much?"

I always stumble over the answer when asked, and that answer often changes depending on who asks it. For someone who cares about music, I talk about the allusions to other musicals and 90s hip hop artists; for someone who writes, I share that there are 23,000+ words (!!!) in this work. For someone who cares about history, I talk about the intention behind casting people of color in leading roles, the accuracy of the story, and the years of research Lin-Manuel Miranda did before bringing Hamilton to life. And for someone who cares about me -- the real reason why I've listened to Hamilton nearly every day since I discovered it a year ago -- the answer is a little more complicated.

I remember listening to the Hamilton soundtrack all the way through for the first time. Afterwards, I couldn’t find the words for how I was feeling. Was I happy to have found a beautiful weaving of a story and music? Always. Was I jealous of how those badass sisters could belt? Obviously. Was I proud to be an American and even a small part of this country’s continuing story? I guess so.

And then I zipped through my copy of Hamilton: The Revolution, the complete libretto with annotations from Lin-Manuel Miranda himself, essays by Jeremy McCarter, and photos from the production. In one of the essays, McCarter writes about Lin-Manuel’s inspiration from ‘Broadway old masters’ like John Kander, who composed Cabaret and Chicago. After seeing the show for the first time, Kander said of Hamilton:

“I came away feeling like writing. Not writing like Lin, or doing a project like that — it was just that really, really good work makes me want to go to work.”

And there it was.

Listening to and researching and reading and memorizing and fangirling over Hamilton had made me want to create, too. Not a musical or a book or a song or anything related to the founding fathers. Some words on a page. Some something that makes me feel as excited and wide-eyed as I do when the first chords of the opening number start. I feel that way still, even after hundreds of plays through the soundtrack.

Because not only was Alexander Hamilton crazy about words (throughout the show, other characters reference Hamilton's obsession with writing) and wrote “like he was running out of time,” but Lin-Manuel Miranda is also dedicated to his craft. And both men are so damn passionate about what they’re doing — motivated and dedicated to keep doing it, tirelessly, and to try to leave the world with more, powerful, meaningful words than when they came. After reading that quote from John Kander, I realized that’s what I wanted to do, too. I wanted to go to work.

Last month, I splurged during a trip-gone-wonky to Chicago and bought myself tickets to see Hamilton. I overpaid and was in the nosebleed section (literally the top corner of the theater), but it was worth every penny and tear that I shed.

I couldn't tell you what my favorite part of the night was. It might have been the eruption of applause and shrieks from the crowd when the lights dimmed, both at the beginning of the show and after intermission. Maybe it was the elderly couple two rows ahead of me who danced in their seats the entire night. Or it might have been the new ways the lyrics pierced me, given the state of our country and my heart on November 10th. Lyrics that become more and more relevant based on the election results: "You want a revolution? I want a revelation!" Songs like "Burn" that made me nod and cry and say, "Me too."

But if I’m being honest, the most important part of the night happened after the show. I walked back to my hotel room and pulled out my journal and wrote. And the next morning I went to a coffee shop and pulled out my journal again and I wrote.

And here I am, a few weeks later, writing. Even this — my first piece of non-Instagram or non-journal writing in over a month — feels like something. A small, slow step toward that work I want to do in the world. It feels a little electric, which is the best way I know how to describe the feeling I get when I know something isn’t big or flashy, but is important. It's that same feeling I get when I hear those opening chords of my favorite songs. It's the same feeling I'll get when I click "publish" on this writing. It's hard to put into words, but it's part of who I am.

We need to surround ourselves with our own Hamiltons — the things that make us want to do the work we are meant to do in the world and create the things we are meant to create. The things that inspire us, get us thinking and feeling, get us working on the things we might leave in this world, that hopefully make it a little bit better than when we arrived.

So, what’s your Hamilton?

I've heard it said,
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn.
And we are led to those
Who help us most to grow if we let them.
And we help them in return.
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you.

—

We needed a song for the 9th grade talent show.

Someone — maybe her, maybe our choir director, maybe one of our many musical theatre-obsessed friends — recommended a duet from a popular musical that would be just perfect for an alto and a soprano: “What is This Feeling” from Wicked. We didn’t know the tune but quickly fell in love with it: how it played up our personalities (me, the naive goody-two-shoes; she, a bit more sassy), our cheesy choreography (lots of grapevining toward each other and pointing at each other), and the perfectly timed “Boo!” and “Aah!” at the end. We practiced in my bedroom and decorated green and pink t-shirts with our names on the back, like our own kind of theatre jerseys, and performed for the rest of the choir during 3rd period. “Loathing” became our song, and we called it that even though we knew it wasn’t the title. Our non-theatre friends would ask us to perform it in their basements on Friday nights; if they didn’t ask, we’d make them listen to us anyway.

—

I stared down at the empty stage, bouncing my legs up and down like I always do.

I sat on stage right, high up in the balcony, nestled between two of my best theatre (and real-life) friends. It was my first time in New York City, my first time to a Broadway show, and my first time hearing the entirety of the Wicked soundtrack. The first note blared from the pit orchestra -- no peaceful musical overview of the show, no calm introduction to the night, just a straight shot into "No One Mourns the Wicked" -- followed by the next note and the next note, and I was in tears. There were no humans on the stage yet, no words spoken and no lyrics sung, but the chords were enough. I don’t remember if I had thought to pack Kleenex, or if someone handed me one after that first song, or if I just sniffled my way through the entire show, wiping my tears on the coat I had bought just for this senior year trip. I do remember turning to my right and grasping one of those best friend’s hands and holding on for dear, dear life until applauding like the high school girls we were when the song was over.

—

It was always 82 miles. It was always one hour.

Every other weekend during college, I drove north on Friday nights to spend the weekend with my boyfriend at the time. I threw my backpack (thebooks and pens and highlighters replaced with clothes and makeup and a hair straightener) in the backseat, lowered myself into the driver's seat, and grabbed a burned CD from the glove compartment given to me by that same best friend whose hand I grasped so tightly years before. As I merged onto I-94, I pressed play and listened to that same, blaring first note. That hour was almost the perfect amount of time to sing along to the entire soundtrack -- always skipping "A Sentimental Man," but replaying "As Long As You’re Mine" a few times -- before I arrived to my own, 20-year-old, a-bit-more-scholastic version of Fiyero. For that hour each weekend, and sometimes on the return trip, I paused the real world, full of papers and decisions and my own feelings, and belted out words about flying and being green and also being blonde, because when you’re driving alone you get to play both lead roles.

—

Some things were the same. Some things were different.

A few weekends ago, I took myself to see Wicked. I took the bus downtown instead of wandering through Times Square to get there. I sat center stage in the 2nd tier balcony instead of on stage right. I was alone, but that was okay: I brought my own wad of toilet paper from the bathroom stall just outside of Aisle 4. I still bounced my legs and got butterflies in my stomach as the lights went down. I mouthed the words to every song and laughed along at every joke and found new ones I missed. I spent intermission furiously typing most of these sentences in my iPhone’s Notes, recalling the 9th grade choreography and the senior year trip and the college year drives. I held my breath and then quickly exhaled as (spoiler alert!) Elphaba emerges from the trapdoor. I was one of the first in my balcony to pop up at the curtain call, fiercely clapping my hands and sneakily wiping my eyes. I took a selfie with the poster instead of a dramatic, posed photo in front of the billboard.

—

It’s amazing how this one little thing — two-and-a-half hours of words and lyrics composed in the late 90s, which was based on a book written in the mid 90s, which was based on a movie that premiered in the late 30s, which was based on a book that was published in 1900 — can show up so frequently and have such a strong hold on my life. It makes me wonder where else Elphaba, Glinda, and that first, blaring note have shown up for people. How have these songs, these characters, and this story shaped and accompanied and held people? Did Stephen Schwartz and Gregory Maguire and MGM Studios and L. Frank Baum know how their music and words would become permanent placeholders in so many lives?

How many other things like that — like songs and books and quotations and even other humans — show up for us?

I wanted to call this essay anything other than For Good. I mean, really — I can’t think of something more creative than the most popular (and semi-cheesy and sentimental) song title of the musical about which I’m writing? But the answer is no, I can’t. Because cheesy or not, these vignettes of my life over the past ten years — involving friendships that have lasted over distance, other relationships that haven’t, and reminders of music’s powerful ability to reach you no matter where you are — have all had a common note: Wicked. Elphaba and Glinda. That first, blaring note is what has shown up for me. I’m sure I could have found another musical, or a song or a book or a human, that has been a similar throughline in my life.

But maybe it’s true, what they sing in “For Good.” That people — and musicals and songs and books — come into our lives for a reason. My duet partner and my Elphaba, Sara. My best friend and my hand-grasper, Catherine. My then-boyfriend and my then-Fiyero. That they bring us something we must learn, even if we don’t recognize the importance of it until years later. How friendships can last across time and distance. How performing will always be part of who you are, even though now it looks a bit different from when you were 14. How it’s okay to take up space and be in the spotlight instead of the ensemble, and how everyone really does deserve that chance to fly. And how we’re led — drawn or pulled, even — to those people and things, those experiences and moments, that help us to grow — into how to be a friend, how to be a girlfriend, how to be a human.

I think I do believe that’s true. I don’t think I would have written this if I didn’t believe that, somehow, the things that show up in our lives are meant to be there. That we are who we are because of them, because of how they have shown up — once or twice or repeatedly, quietly or loudly or sometimes annoyingly — in our lives. That these things know us as much as we know them. And that (and here it comes, the real cheesy kicker you have been waiting for since you read the title of this essay) they have changed us…

For good.

Wicked in NYC, 2009 & Wicked in PDX, 2015

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alexander hamilton.

for good.