091918 it was fall and she said, Turning over new leaves brought me you and i was like (looking down and out of half a smile) i’m not sure that’s a good thing, and she just took me in her arms and said Remember? little update: i believe i mentioned in class that i took my daughters to *In the Heights.* Well I just wanted to say it was really great, and the best part? I mean besides Abuela, besides the constant urge to wiggle in my seat along with the beat, besides all those healthy energized young people dancing, besides the compelling lyrics and raps and emotional songs--the best part for me was when we came home, late, and everyone went up to bed, but my 6th grader came back down the stairs, peered around the corner to find me, and said, “Thank you for taking us to that. It was really, really, really good, and I had a great time,” and gave me a big hug before going back up to bed. Now *that’s* American literature. She also said, “Maybe it wasn’t *Hamilton,* but maybe it was--better,” and I was like well I don’t know if it was *better* necessarily, but it was pretty darn cool. And then I didn’t smoke any weed or drink any alcohol but instead I brushed my teeth and went to bed and had a few scattered dreams like gentle thunderstorms. Let the cat in when she rattled the door. Woke up too early, just before Millie started taking a shower, got my ass up out of bed to tell you this, for some reason. And that’s where I’m at right now. Did you notice how the play wasn’t about the cops, or the military, or the government? It didn’t even feature any of those. It wasn’t a typical “we’re a scrappy minority and we’re a bunch of victims in the sights of white people but we have certain recipes and music and we sur*vive* by god despite being tortured and hated and punished and killed by all the white people like all y’all who are sitting perfectly still in the audience right now, no matter how pumped and soulful the music gets (did you ever notice that? Like just look around the house at a play like that and see all the old white people who can afford to go to stuff like that just sitting there as still as politely smiling *rocks?* How can they not move at all? Jesus, can’t they feel that beat?) applauding when we dance and sing” type of thing. It didn’t have to do (directly) with oppression or politics or guns or drugs or how hard and mean the world is. I mean, yeah, they were struggling too. There was not enough money. They had to make hard decisions. But it wasn’t a typical war movie, you know? Like almost everything else is these days. It wasn’t the righteous side of the class war being thrown in your face again. It was about... hmm, what was it about? It was about the *piragua* guy. It was about photographs and boxes of memories and caring for your family, both bio- and logical. It was about your little cousin who needs a role model. It was about gossip and sex and love and balconies. It was about coming together when the power goes out. Yeah, there was the rather obvious double meaning when that part happened in the lyric, “we are powerless,” but it wasn’t sung to paint a portrait of the oppressor, like such things usually are. It was about being the first one to go to college, and all that pressure. It was about language and the connections and barriers thereof. It was about figuring out where home was. It was about literally dancing in the streets. It was about hair and sass. It was about dreaming. And so on. It was refreshing. It was about living, not about painting a picture of a political world and making you feel good about yourself because you could suspend your disbelief long enough to relate to the scrappy goodguys. It wasn’t about guilt or terror. It didn’t go so far as to pretend those things don’t exist, but it decided to take the time--our time, our time that we bought a ticket for--to rhapsodize and celebrate something else. Something real. Something really important that also just happens to feel really, really, good. I had a great time.