Look around

(Jeannette took me to see Hamilton!!)

I keep thinking back on Hamilton, and remembering how even when I was watching it, how sharply aware I was of it as a fleeting moment.

Also, while watching, I kept imagining Isaac watching it and wondering what he would think of those silly musical theater tropes (someone swoops in with a chair, sits on it, pretends to talk to another actor, dances off, the other actor twirls away with the chair...) I mean, I love them, but what would he think?

Come to think of it, 21 year old Isaac might scoff a bit, but nine or ten year old Isaac (I can't believe I'm not remembering specifically how old he was) was a superstar on the stage in Oliver! Singing, dancing, the whole nine yards. He really was great, in a role as one of the pickpockets with one line that got laughs, as I (his proud mother) recall. That was an era of Cockney accents and little tweed vests and hats and urchin shoes around here. Not just Isaac, but Zoë and a few of their best friends too.

They were urchins for Halloween that year.

A bunch of pickpockets.

Don't tell Isaac (right) I said that he is still this adorable.

The guy who played Fagin HATED the kids who played the pickpockets. They cast so many of them, so there were hordes of rascally children running around the theater all the time, and more than once Fagin had strong words, mainly directed to their MOTHERS specifically.

So, actually, that kid has some experience with twirling around with props and posing stage left, etc.

Also, Hamilton was just amazing. It totally lived up to my expectations. I feel like I had one item on my life list (I will not call it a Bucket List because it's against my religion to use that phrase), and now it's neatly crossed out. Not to say I wouldn't love to see it again.

Music of hair / Music of pain

This boy turned 20, and his sweet cousin Jonah turned 17, and the days turned sunny and warm enough for opening windows and grilling things and pulling weeds in the garden. Isaac is here for another few days before he heads back to live in New York for the summer (and possibly longer--he's taking the coming year off school). We all realized that the last five months marks the longest period he's ever spent away from home, the longest stretch of days that we haven't seen him in the flesh. It's so good to hug this boy and feed him food and have him drive us around town (he's determined to get his license this summer, and he's a good, confident driver).

I'm listening to this Hamilton podcast, an all-Hamilton, every-single-song podcast, and I don't like it very much so far. But I did just realize that it features different groups of people talking about the songs each time. These people...are very white. I don't know. I will report back. In the meantime, here are some people (of color) talking to Lin-Manuel Miranda on one of my favorite podcasts. And here are some people of different races talking about Hamilton on another of my favorite podcasts.

We finally invested in our own screenprinting equipment, and we have a whole shop set up in the basement, and Milo in Maine is printing its own damn shirts! It makes such a well-balanced work day when I can write all morning and print all afternoon: thinking and sitting work // standing and listening to podcasts and moving work. It feels good. And check out this bear.

My life is kind of bursting with other people's heartbreaks right now. Trying to be grateful for and conscious of my lucky lucky life.


WAIT

by Galway Kinnell


Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours.
Haven’t they carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

Hello, Friend.

Undergarments:

I had great success ordering a very inexpensive bra online a few months ago. But now I am trying to get two more bras the same way (I am constantly short on them, because I wash them lazily and also they get weird and stretched out and uncomfortable over time), and I keep striking out. I currently have a heap of bras that I have to take to UPS and send back.


Kinder, gentler:

I refuse, with all this Donald Trump stuff. I refuse. I just can't think about it anymore, I need cute animal videos and gentle BBC shows and flowers and hot cups of tea. Mark and I have as a result been binge-watching all of Downton Abbey lately. And making avocado toast and poaching eggs and dusting things. And so on.


Worry:

I do. February was hard on many people I care about. I try to take my worry every morning to an island and leave it there, and I am generally fairly successful. And I have an innate optimism that just inevitably comes out like an annoying cheerleader, no matter what.


Linkz:

I have found you a site at which you can find the answer to this one very important question before you watch a movie: DOES THE DOG DIE?

Who wouldn't want to take a Handmaid's Tale walking tour of Cambridge, Mass?

The story of #YayHamlet. And more #YayHamlet, connections between Shakespeare and Hamilton. And finally, I really want a #YayHamlet t-shirt!

Cheer yourself up with these raccoon Gifs!