A Thank You Note to Lin-Manuel Miranda

Dear Lin-Manuel Miranda,

It seems absurd to send words to you. Whichever words I choose and whatever order I put them in, you could do it better, I'm sure of it. To me, words are everything. Sir, your words are everything.

Moments ago, I finished listening to the NPR stream of Hamilton and I am convinced for the second time that you've written a musical meant to change me. I first heard In the Heights several years ago and I last heard In the Heights sometime last week. When I sing along with it, I sing every part (of course not the harmonies all at once, that'd be magic) because the layers of words and notes and rhymes and themes are just too intricate to discriminate against. I cannot adequately express this.

This evening, as I sat down to experience Hamilton, I could hardly contain myself. My brain, accustomed to your sounds, tried to sing along, tried to anticipate, tried to hear Usnavi in the chorus. And did, to the extent that to hear Usnavi in the chorus is to hear Lin-Manuel Miranda in the chorus.

Each time I heard a character's motif come through, in song after song, I said, "damn!" out loud, so impressed by your incredible skill. Not surprised in any sense--if you cannot already tell, I revere you, deeply--but as line after line wove itself into this hip-hop history lesson I threw up my hands. Each lilting syllable, each syncopated storyline...I'm laughing at myself because I can't even put together a sentence to try to explain to you how much I love your ability to put together sentences!

I suppose at some point in a thank you note it is customary to say thank you. Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for getting under my skin and into my lungs, rattling my bones and making me feel inexplicably human in this music. Thank you for showing this Californian how the city of New York has crossed time and space to be the place all these people call home. Thank you for giving such large pieces of yourself in these performances. Thank you for writing. Thank you.

xo Case

Like literally awesome.

I'm really good at awe.

I follow National Geographic on instagram (do it) and am regularly awed by such cool images of landscapes and animals and outer space and up-close-microscopic whatever!

I read a lot, and when I read something really good, I get in this weird out-of-body kind of zone where I am just awed by that author's capacity to affect me in such a way, with words!

In church, when I'm lucky, I sing a hymn and listen to the voices around me melding together and am awed by the way notes just sound so beautiful together!

In my hometown of Encinitas, when I crest over Leucadia (or Birmingham) and see the ocean, I always say, "hello ocean!" and am awed by it's glittering vastness--time after time.

Last week, Jonathan and I had the immense pleasure of traveling to Oahu and visiting some of his family who live there. We may have also gone to some beaches.

Jonathan kept chuckling as we'd come around a bend or out of a tunnel or just turn a regular ol' corner and I'd gasp and say "hello, ocean!" like I hadn't seen a similar view 19 times that day.

The first day we were there, I posted like five instagrams because I was so awed by everything that was in front of my face. Here's one:
A photo posted by Casey ☀ (@casey_sunshine) on

And here's one of those vistas that I was just like WHAT
A photo posted by Casey ☀ (@casey_sunshine) on

And we went to this botanical garden and there were these plumerias with the buds all spiraled and I was like "oh, that's how that works?!"

A photo posted by Casey ☀ (@casey_sunshine) on
And we went to a beach one day where we were the only people there! We had like half an hour to kill and we saw this random roadside path that said public beach access and so we walked down it...and I could not believe this glorious coastline was just sitting there!


A photo posted by Casey ☀ (@casey_sunshine) on
And then another day we went snorkeling! Which I don't have photos of because I forgot my underwater camera like a big old idiot, but I cannot even tell you how incredible my snorkeling experience was. If Jonathan is reading this he is laughing out loud because I am the hugest goober to ever wear a snorkel--and that is saying a whole lot, since you look like a goon in a snorkel kind of regardless. I couldn't keep my mask from getting foggy and I kept managing to breathe seawater and I'm sure that a significant portion of his GoPro video is me flailing on the edge of the frame. However! There were so many of so many different kinds of fish! And I kept breathing in seawater because a group of yellowy ones would swim across my vision and I'd be like WHOA out loud and then there would be this big beautiful purple one and I'd be like WHOA out loud and then there'd be these tiny stripey ones everywhere and I'd be like WHOA out loud and then there'd definitely be water in my snorkel.

But like it was so nuts as we were leaving the beach and getting back in the car to think about how all those fishies were just keeping on keeping on. That while I'm living my life, those fish are just, you know, living their lives. I hopped into their habitat for an hour like some weird monster and they were like "okay."

I am an absurd human person.

I love to be overwhelmed by how excellent the world is! There is so much to be in awe of, and I hope that even when you're not looking at incredible Hawaiian vistas, you're in awe of whatever it is that is going on around you. Because holy moly the whole world is going on around you! Awesome.

Walking the labyrinth always reminds me of every other labyrinth I've walked. It will, of course, always bring HTLC to mind, since our journey was much longer than the labyrinth itself.

I remember a labyrinth at Yolijwa, and a cloth one in the Family Center at Bethlehem, and making one from masking tape on a retreat with BLCYM, and one at an RMS gathering, and the one CLU built after I graduated, and those "homework" labyrinths we walked in Denver...and then finally walking ours, just days before I left. How poignant was that?!

What I loved about this one at The Bishop's Ranch was how many views there were from each turn—perched on a hill in the Russian River Valley, one can see for miles between the evergreens. One space took my breath away. 



Between branches, a vineyard is visible, and beyond it, rolling green hills. What luck to be here in verdant February, when everything is beginning to flourish with rain and sun.

You never know where the labyrinth is going to lead you, but you're free to let it because there's only one path. You don't have to choose a road, so you're completely free to listen and watch. What a gift.