Music has a way of grounding us in a place and time. It can be a dance, a story, a memory, a prayer, and sometimes all at the same time. It is a soundtrack that marks our memories.
For my family our soundtrack this year was Hamilton.
Hamilton the Musical showed up at just the right time. It’s a story about perseverance in the face of adversity in hopes of attaining something greater. In the midst of a pandemic when uncertainty felt like a war against an unruly enemy, when division over politics and hatred and racism fueled literal and spiritual fires, when we just wanted to feel something, anything, other than overwhelming boredom or boring overwhelm, Lin Manuel Miranda gave us something to believe in together. The storytelling and the music become the soundtrack for my family to survive together.
As a writer, it is my job to look back in order to look forward. That’s what storytelling is all about. So naturally, as we approached the one year mark of when the world first revealed the crisis that would shape us for months, I wanted to process it all. But it’s hard to process something when you are still in the middle of it. I think the trauma will be something that will surface bits at a time for years to come.
Instead of trauma, right now, I wanted fun. It only felt natural I would turn to Hamilton.
And so today I bring you a timeline of events beginning January 2020 until the present, the things that feel etched on my memory forever, and the other things I worry might fade away if I don’t document them. And since every good story needs a soundtrack, I present our year through the sounds and words of Hamilton, the 2020-2021 remixed edition. It was cathartic. It was fun. And just like the musical, it was exactly the poetry and prayer I needed right now.
Please enjoy my show.
January 2020. There was so much expectation in those four numbers.
Our visions were clear. We set big goals like “Talk Less” and “Smile More”. There was an election coming up at the end of the year and we were all trying to figure out what we were against and what we were for. As the ball dropped on a new year we all said “yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo what time is it? SHOWTIME” as we set off to make big plans.
For me I didn’t know what to expect from this year but I felt like it held potential. Whatever it was, I was willing to wait for it. I told myself my slow progress towards my goals in the past did not mean I was falling behind or running late. I was not standing still, I was just lying in wait.
At the end of January, we all had our attention on the impeachment of a President who had ruined his own life, and countless others. But we announced “he aint gonna be president now” too soon. That should have been a sign.
What we didn’t know was February was the eye of the hurricane. There was quiet for just a moment. Rumors went around about a virus coming out of China. But I wasn’t in China and didn’t have any plans to be. Some friends started to fear, filled shopping carts, canceled plans. I wrote words instead. That’s how I approach uncertainty. If it got bad I would just write my way out. It would be fine. We would be fine. Wait for it, wait for it. You’ll see.
It was mid March when things started to burn. We were visiting my sister and her kids on their farm to make maple syrup. Sometimes we talked about the virus, asked questions, made judgements. But mostly we were happy, carefree, let our fears disappear like the water content in the syrup we boiled. We let it all burn.
Until the next morning, when we saw the letters they wrote to us. “Be careful with this one,” experts said. “We must do what it takes to survive.” That meant canceling school. This was apparently the thing that finally meant it was real. This was what left me defenseless. All the palaces and cathedrals we built for our year of fun plans started crashing in on us. We were paranoid with every paragraph we read about what this new coronavirus could do to us. We forfeited our rights to a weekend away. We forfeited our rights to the bed and breakfast I reserved for a writing retreat. With only the memories of when we were free, we watched the world burn.
It wasn’t all so miserable though. Some days we really were satisfied. Some days were filled with memories that we thought we would remember for all our days. I remember the walks, the coloring, and the stories we listened to. I remember their friendship blossoming that set my heart aflame, every part aflame, it was part of the game. When I looked around at our life I realized three fundamental truths at the exact same time.
Number one, I’m a girl in a world in which my only job is to take care of them, and I can do that safely.
Number two, the virus is not going anywhere and we needed to figure out how to live safely. We would be naive to think we could avoid it, but we could make good choices.
And Number three, I know my husband like I know my own mind. I would never find anyone as trusting or as kind. If I tell him that I needed help he would tell me he was mine. If I said I was fine he would know I was lying. And so we were honest with each other about our feelings and learned together how to be satisfied.
By May we had learned the best ways to Stay Alive. We needed to outrun, outlast the virus. So we stopped grocery lines, we ordered them instead. We picked and chose our battles and places to take a stand. And every day, we entrusted our safety to a mask across our face and tried to make decisions about what was safe to do.
The decision fatigue was exhausting. Retreat. Go out. Retreat. Go out. We felt more fear as we scrolled our devices. Indecisive from crisis to crisis. All we wanted to do was Stay Alive. And so we did.
But he didn’t.
On Memorial Day as we enjoyed our carry out barbecue and local brewed beers, George Floyd was murdered by police officers a few streets away. This would set our city and then the world on a trajectory of holy rage. Our city was set on fire. Our church became a refuge and then a source of support. Our family served, marched, sobbed, witnessed, and the rest of the world joined us in protest. We had witnessed the deaths of innocent black people firsthand. We were learning our every mistake, felt the shame rise within, knowing in this moment that history had its eyes on us. Maybe we had no control over who lives, who dies, who tells the story, but we knew, if we tried, we could win against racism. Greatness lies within our great country and we must remember from here on in that history has its eyes on us.
As we walked around the city with our children, seeing the wreckage of racism fueled fear and anger, we talked to them. We promised them we would bleed and fight for them, make it right from them. We talked about laying a strong enough foundation, give the world to them, knowing they would blow us all away. It was what gave me hope. Someday. Someday.
And just like that, by the fourth of July, we discovered Alexander Hamilton. Either as a distraction from the turmoil in our city or as a reminder for how to fight for something that mattered, the Hamilton soundtrack played on every speaker, in our house and our car, morning to night in preparation for the movie coming out just in time for independence day. We learned about the ten-dollar founding father without a father who got a lot farther by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter. By the fourteenth of july we had watched it five times.
With Hamilton as our backdrop, we continued on with our own summer in the city, exploring our own backyard on foot and bike, keeping cool at the lake, watching our garden grow. We escaped downtown and went camping in the woods of Minnesota and Colorado. Even with the revolution going on, the uprising, the pandemic, how much was canceled, we couldn’t help but think “look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now.”
There was more goodness at the end of the summer. A senator from California, Kamala Harris, started to gain attention. Some men said she was intense, she was insane. Some wanted a revolution, Kamala wanted a revelation. So in mid August, Presidential candidate Joe Biden was compelled to put women in the sequel of our nation’s history when he chose Kamala as his running mate. I was ready. Time to WORK!
But the optimism faded as talk of returning to school looked ominous. Would we go back? Would we not? I weighed the options wondering how I should respond? I cried in my tea, hurled questions into the sea of the internet and anyone who would listen. Why so sad, said the school. We’ll make an arrangement for you so you don’t have to decide. You’ll be back in school, just not in person. Yes that subject, they’re favorite subject, the sweet, submissive subjects, the loyal, royal subjects will all be taught online and managed by you forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, until we tell you can come back to school.
And so I became a teacher, well, a teacher assistant. We found our schedule, and we learned Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow how to keep pace from day to day in front of a screen. Sometimes I would take a break and run away for the afternoon to the grocery store. But mostly I had to stay and help the kids get through kindergarten and third grade.
Meanwhile, election season was looming. Cabinet Battles against candidates were disgraceful. It seemed like some of the candidates were out of their gosh darn minds. Each side claimed “you don’t have the votes, you don’t have the votes.” Many of us worried they were right. We couldn’t let this happen. We were just like our country--young scrappy and hungry for change. We dreamed of a life without a monarchy. The unrest in country was leading to anarchy. Our only hope was to fight to make the other side panicky, with our shot. And so we voted.
Election day came and went, November 8. And so the American experiment began, as we kept our eyes on states like Arizona and Nevada and Wisconsin and Georgia. How did we know that this plan would work? We had a spy on the inside, that's right Stacey Abrams!
She had spent months getting voter information and then registering it. She was helping the democratic party running and lovin' it! See, that's what happens when you up against voter suppression. We were in the *beep* now, somebody had to shovel it! Stacey Abrams, she needs no introduction. When you knock her down she gets the *beep* back up again!
After election week of fighting, refreshing our election pages, losing hope, on Saturday morning November 7 we lower our phones as the Associated Press frantically waved a white handkerchief declaring Biden the winner of Pennsylvania. And just like that, it's over, we tend to our wounded hearts during the last four years, we count our dead in a pandemic poorly addressed by our disastrous president. Black and white Americans wonder alike if this, finally electing a new president, really means freedom.
Not yet. While many on the republican side, including the President Trump, refused to talk about the terms of surrender, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets. There were screams and church bells ringing. And as our fallen foes refused to retreat, I heard the drinking song they're singing.
We won! We won! We won!
Meanwhile November left me feeling equal parts hopeful and emotionally exhausted. I’ve learned in the past that writing helps me in moments of uncertainty. In November, I wrote like I needed it to survive, every second I was alive, or at least every second I wasn’t answering questions to children still in the depths of distance learning.
Still, the pandemic raged on. When December arrived, we realized it would be the first Christmas that we would decide to stay home, stay away from family. It was hard. But in time we learned how lucky we were to be alive right now. A small family Christmas at home would be difficult, would be lonely, but it would be enough, we would be enough. And it was enough.
Just before midnight on December 31, 2020, we count down to a new year and all wonder the unimaginable. Would it be better?
This past year there were moments that the words wouldn’t reach, a suffering too terrible to name. We pushed away what we could not understand, we pushed away the unimaginable.
But then, a new year, a grace too powerful to name. A vaccine was on its way.
Hope, can you imagine?
Unfortunately, the hope of a new year did not last long. On January 6, a mob of people, encouraged by President Trump, incited an insurrection against the nation’s Capitol building. The vote to formalize Joe Biden’s victory was taking place during a joint session of congress Angry supporters of Trump and white supremacists wanted to be in the room where it happened and stop the vote. It was horrifying, deadly, and only painted a clearer picture of the division in our nation. After the election, we dreamed of a brand new start, but that day reminded us that we dream in the dark for the most part.
But two weeks later on inauguration day January 20 we regained our hope with the swearing in of our first female vice president, the feelings of rising up, wising up with our eyes up. The Presidency of Joe Biden feels like a promising new legacy, even if legacy is just planting seeds in a garden we will never see. America is a great unfinished symphony and there is hope with this new presidency.
Now we have reached a full year of this pandemic. The vaccine is working. I am starting to hug family, soon friends. We are starting to make plans and that feels like hope. But still, there are scars of grief I haven’t yet worked through.
I thought at this point I would be able to tell you what I wish I'd known when I was young and dreamed of glory in early 2020. But I still feel triggered. I’m still learning. I’m still processing. I think I will for quite some time. I’m left wondering, have I done enough? I’ll never know. What I do know is I have no control over who lives and who dies, but only I can tell the story.
And so I will keep doing that. Like America, I am a great unfinished symphony. And the world is wide enough for me. I will keep telling the story.
