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

More Than Words

I don't get a whole lot of mail. For one thing, I have moved every year for the past six years between two colleges and a graduate school and an internship and the summers at home. I don't get established enough to have magazine subscriptions or even get bills mailed to me, haha. Everything is online. And because of all this moving, I have friends all over the nation (and a few across the world)! We do our best to communicate as often as we can, which is made very easy by Skype and Facebook and twitter and e-mails and text messages. And we certainly appreciate each other as we send "thinking of you xo" and "miss your face" and "this dumb thing reminded me of you" and "thought you'd laugh at this corgi picture" and all the other beautiful things technology allows.

But ever since our first big move out of Encinitas and on to the many iterations of "home" we've had since then, I've been firmly committed to occasionally sending those I love actual mail. You know, real life paper with handwriting and a stamp!

It's one of my favorite things. Because in a time where I can so easily just send a text message that says "miss you love you," it's pretty fun to have that sentiment arrive in a brightly-colored envelope covered in dinosaur stickers.

I wrote a post a while ago I think about how the boys never write back to me. And they still don't. Sometimes, they acknowledge that I sent them something (via text message or Facebook, of course!) which brings me a little jolt of joy.

Being on internship, I've been writing to my fellow interns and classmates who are at PLTS still. You know what's awesome? They write back. Gretchen and Maria and Amanda and I have an email chain we send back and forth, and we communicate via text message every few days, and I even spent an hour on the phone with Maria a few nights ago. But I've sent and/or received a card from each of them in the last two weeks. Because we are awesome.

Do you ever send "snail" mail? If not, give it a try. If you're someone to whom I am not already in the practice of sending mail, give me your mailing address and join the fun! It'll be worth more than the words.

Benari

This past year has been particularly complicated in my conflicted feelings toward the United States Military. I'm not super down with wars, obviously, and there are so many soldiers who behave badly. It breaks my heart every time I read about soldiers who disrespect the people whose country they've taken over. Especially right now, all of the anti-Muslim behavior is just devastating to me. And I went to high school with someone who committed war crimes in Iraq. But, then, I also grew up with a really nice guy who's now in the Navy. And a friend of mine from college is married to an Army doctor. And a really great guy who went to seminary here is going to be a military chaplain. And over the summer at the hospital I met some lovely kids (seriously though) who are serving in the Marine Corps and are shining individuals.

As I said, complicated.

Somewhere along the line I started following a funny guy on twitter who happens to also be serving this country in Kandahar, Afghanistan. I don't know which branch he serves with or what he does, exactly, but he makes me laugh. He's witty and insightful about politics and war, among other things, of course. I do not know him.

Last week, it was his birthday. He tweeted about how he'd be alone in Afghanistan not opening any presents. He tweeted his address at somebody else who asked about sending him a birthday present or card or something. I think he knew this person. On a whim, I creeped his address and wrote him a birthday card and dropped it in the mail. [You only pay postage to a base in like NY or something, then they send it the rest of the way. It's rad!] I didn't put a return address on it, just my twitter handle. Like a big dork. But whatever.

He got my card! And tweeted thanks! It was totally random and totally awesome.

I just wanted to share.

[If you're the tweeting kind, follow SFC Benari Poulten @BenariLee]