Trigger warning in effect. Copyright 2021 Lady in the Blue Box Publishing, Rachel Beth Ahrens. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, May 4th, 2021. Height: still at 5ft. nothing in. Weight: still 165 lbs. and overweight. Alcohol intake: one (1) Love Martini cocktail at the fondue restaurant Melting Pot in Towson. Chocolate level: too much dark chocolate and caramel bliss.
Anniversary of the Day I Met the Love of My Life: our first.
It was also our second celebration of Star Wars Day together.
Little did I know, someone famous put this letter in the mail, the handwriting of my name and address HANDWRITTEN, and no, it was not my boyfriend's handwriting either... Postmarked the same day I filled up on fondue, filet mignon, salmon, spinach-artichoke cheese dip, and chocolate-caramel fondue that was laced with 151 rum and set ablaze with fire. They called that dessert fondue "The Flaming Turtle", and I have a video to prove it.
It was so damn cool, you need to see it. It's on my Facebook page. Will be updated on YouTube soon, complete with me quoting the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the best one, my favorite.
Then came the hardest Mother's Day I ever had my entire life. Mom was crying, I tried to get her to stop, she only begged me for compassion and got upset. It led to both of us crying and holding each other. It was because it was our first Mother's Day without my dad. My dad would have been pissed as hell if he was alive and knew that his girls were crying on Mother's Day while he was in, what is it, Heaven?
Whew. There's a lot to unpack here.
I went into my email. Checked to see if my Hot Topic package arrived yet, the birthday present for my boyfriend Alexander, this coming August. USPS said in green bold letters: Delivered, in mailbox. I asked mom nicely to get the mail, since I'm not allowed to have a mail key, yet.
I had three pieces of mail: Hot Topic's package, ripping material from Capital One- wants me to buy a credit card, and a small, tiny letter in a 4X6 envelope, strange handwriting on it, looks kind of like my boyfriend's handwriting, I guess??? The handwriting actually looked neater, Alexander always complained that his handwriting was WAY too messy; he kept asking me if his writing was legible or looked like chicken scratch. Not that I blame him, he's not the only one with handwriting that looked atrocious. Too many Americans have awful penmanship because cursive handwriting is no longer taught in public schools anymore and it sucks.
I'm the only one keeping calligraphy and cursive alive. My bad. Then again, lots of my friends and others say I have very good penmanship- my cursive is legible. My print handwriting is worse, terrible.
If you remember my poem "I Don't Send Letters to the Fame", it was basically my anthem poem, something like introducing Weezer in "My Name is Jonas" or better yet, and this is more my speed, Blurryface in twenty one pilots' "Stressed Out". My favorite lyric was: "I wish I could sing a better chorus and rhyme some better words, I wish I could make some chords in an order that is new, I wish I didn't have to rhyme every time I sang, I used to think that someday all my fears would shrink and now I'm insecure and I care what people think, my name's Blurryface and I care what you think..."
That was the mindset I had writing that fan letter in poetic format. Yes, every word of it is true, I meant it, all of it.
My hands started shaking when I read the return address, stamped in ink, not handwritten: "Lin-Manuel Miranda, New York, NY 100".
Cue the internal screaming and on the verge of a panic attack.
Trying to imitate Ringo Starr in the movie of the same name: "HEEEEEEEELLLLLP!"
My inner critic yelled at me, "I told you so! I TOLD YOU SO! You should have NEVER mailed it, you IDIOT! He hated you from the beginning, he's written you something nasty, here come the waterworks! Ha ha ha ha haaaaa! Vengeance is mine!"
Yeah, like my bipolar disorder, my inner critic is an asshole. This is why.
I begged Alexander to start a video call chat on Facebook, it was an emergency meeting. I showed him the envelope. I did not open it yet. I asked him if I had permission to do it in front of me, and when. He said, "I think you shouldn't leave it unopened for much longer. I think you should open it sooner than you think. Why not now?"
I breathed. I rolled my eyes and whispered, "Rachel, what the hell are you doing?"
I carefully opened the envelope, trying not to rip it too much.
This is what came out:
"Dear Rachel,
Thank you kindly for your sweet and thoughtful letter; your support means the world! I was delighted to read that you like to write poetry. Although it takes many drafts to have something you'll be satisfied with, keep writing and keep sharing. (he drew a smiley face!) :)
Happy trails!
*Siempre,
Lin-Manuel Miranda"
*(pronounced See-EM-Prey- Spanish translation- 'always' or the actual term Lin-Manuel always uses is "love that goes on forever, love always" -He always signs off every letter with the Spanish word 'Siempre' to everything he writes, including his texts and emails.)
I started laughing right there and couldn't stop. I thought I was going to cry. I thought I'd be more enthused about the package from Hot Topic, I was wrong. This note was even BETTER.
And as I'm listening to my twenty one pilots and Hamilton mashup playlist of all things that inspire neurotic writers... I'm now thinking of how I quoted his first success, In the Heights. The musical is about a neighborhood that's about to disappear, because of the political movement and battle for immigration reform. And it takes place at the birthplace of Freestyle Love Supreme, where it all started in New York City, in 2003 at the Drama Bookshop. It starts with a kid in the summertime who runs a bodega, wishing he could return home to Dominican Republic to be with his family since his parents passed, and it's one of the hottest days of the year. He has a crush on a girl who wants to get out of her situation and become successful, but he's shy and intimidated to talk to her. His best friend Benny is in love with a Latina, but her parents don't approve of their relationship because he's Black and not Hispanic or Latino, kind of a Romeo and Juliet story between Benny and Nina, and Nina just dropped out of Stanford University because she's lost her scholarship. As the story continues, you hear the other stories of the men and women with their own businesses, a winning lottery ticket for $96,000 is purchased, it happens to be the bodega kid's abuela- grandmother in Spanish- who won the lottery. And sadly, she passes away before she could claim her winnings. The kid, Usnavi, is going to lose his bodega, Nina is not going to be able to go back to college, Vanessa is not going to get her dream, Benny and Nina are in love but their family doesn't like it. And now the block is disappearing, because there is a BLACKOUT. Literally.
It all takes place in 2003 for a reason: That summer of that year was the infamous year of the Blackout when a huge chunk of the Five Burroughs of New York City lost all power, as in no electricity and no air conditioning. Gone. That was part of the story, and a huge part.
2003 was also the worst year of high school I ever had. My parents declared bankruptcy that year and I started becoming suicidal at 15 years old in high school. It was the year my mental illness was rearing its ugly head, all the red flags that I was screaming for help.
So far, I love the music of the soundtrack to In the Heights because of its salsa and rumba rhythms cutting through and intertwining with the hip hop music of urban New York, which reminds me so much of home. Baltimore is a LOT like Washington Heights in Manhattan. One of my favorite lines in the musical is, "I stood on top of the world on a subway map." And coincidentally, subways and Metro trains are the theme of this year's Camp NaNoWriMo for the annual National Novel Writing Month of 2021!
Was I floored by this? Hell yeah.
Also, this may be a spoiler, but the end of the Broadway musical of In the Heights ends with a graffiti artist tagging Usnavi's bodega, but with perfect and gorgeous artwork, and most importantly, it's a beautiful aerosol painting of Usnavi's abuela, to remind him of what home is. Usnavi finally realizes that he has two homes, and his primary home is in New York. No matter where you are, you are home.
To sum up this story, BEAUTIFUL.
Also, I bet you didn't know- Baltimore City has TONS of graffiti murals all over town that are painted by guerilla artists, as far back as the outskirts of Parkville close to Argonne Drive and Morgan University, Towson too, where the Senator Theatre sits. The murals are there for a reason to make the city more precious and beautiful, to remind the people of Baltimore that there is one thing to add to your home no matter what, and it's a four letter word: HOPE.
That is why there is the word BELIEVE in bold white letters against black signs and black stickers that line the streets of Baltimore, even outside Camden Yards, the baseball home of my Birds, the Baltimore Orioles, and all the way across the city too by M&T Bank Stadium, our football team location of The Ravens. Charm City's catchphrase is Believe because we Marylanders are so very resilient, and we believe in two things that are four letters long, love and hope, to get us through one day at a time.
This is why I'm dying to see the movie In the Heights in June this year. It's a summer story that provokes hope and positivity in the face of uncertainty and a world-epidemic that still causes death in the wake of vaccinations still, which is what both director Jon M. Chu and Lin-Manuel Miranda said that this was a cure for your soul during COVID19, in the cover story for Variety Magazine. India is facing hell right now with the wild brushfire spread of the disease, Israel is going through so much hell politically speaking with the mass executions, and America, the home front here, faces racial injustice, injustice for transgender rights, and the silent killer of people who have been vaccinated but facing social distancing either way: mental illness, anxiety over becoming integrated again, and suicide.
This is why I wrote Instant Infinity. The stigma against mental illness, if the reason why I dropped out of CCBC is any indication, needs to STOP. Now. Sadly, nobody wants to publish anything I write. Makes me more depressed every day and I'm still fighting it.
Like Leslie Odom, Jr. sings in the Aaron Burr ballad "Wait For It", I'm reminded of how I came out of the darkness of depression when my father passed away at the age of 59 on New Year's Eve, seven hours before midnight, Happy New Year 2021.
"Death doesn't discriminate... It takes and it takes... We keep living anyway, we rise and we fall and we make our mistakes- If there's a reason I'm willing to try when everyone who've loved me has died, I'm willing to wait for it."
And the biggest line of that song grasped me the hardest: "Love doesn't discriminate," as in Love is Love, beautiful. The Big one? "LIFE doesn't discriminate." It makes me take a big gulping breath.
That was what made me realize the truth behind the Hebrew phrase Tikkun Olam, which I learned from a Michael Cera movie, about the importance of Shalom: coming together... It made me have an epiphany of my new upcoming steampunk-historical fiction-science fiction novel, The Debutante of Cassiopeia.
LOVE CONQUERS ALL. That phrase used to be on a wooden piece of artwork hanging over the kitchen in the house I used to live: Love conquers all, Surrender. Dad bought it a long time ago, I think from a sci fi convention before I was born.
That is the most important lesson I have yet to teach in this new book I'm writing.
That did it, Marie.
I'm crocheting a cosplay of a beautiful blue gown, it's coming along great, and it's inspired by the biography of Eliza Hamilton that I'm reading. The part of the bio that made me realize that Debutante is a steampunk novel was when I was reading chapter two- while listening to "Ten Duel Commandments" and the ticking of the clock underneath, plus the most Jane Austen thing I ever read in chapter two, that Angelica Schuyler was like Jane Bennet, and Eliza was Eliza, comparing them to Pride and Prejudice??? Oh my god, I got this now. Time travel, the ticking of the cogs and clocks, Eliza is like a superhero with all her adventures over the 50 years in which she lived as a widow, this screams steampunk!
Get out a pen, Rachel, start writing, you ginger!
All right, I'm gonna say it. I am a FAN.
Thank you, my amazing Twitter fans. Thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda for your lovely note and autograph. You're all gorgeous.
I'm in love with Alexander Hamilton. Thanks!
No, please don't sing the song. "Cheering For Me Now" and "Helpless" are still my favorites. And so is "Dear Theodosia" and "That Would Be Enough". I adore "The Room Where It Happened", so catchy.
Ok, FINE! You win! The soundtrack is genius! You got me. Dammit. I lost.
The musical is terrific. And yet, I have never seen a real Broadway show my whole life and I have no access to Disney + either. Sucks to be me. Maybe I will be able to go to New York when this is all over.
And as for the letter- That was a definite SIGN. A sign that he may not be terrible as he seems. He used the exact words "sweet" and "thoughtful" in the same sentence to describe the letter. That means- He LOVED it. Despite my evil negative inner critic, I got noticed. My lover Alexander agrees too.
And an anagram of sign is sing.
I'm definitely going to sing this story. Just wait.
This is FINALLY the end of my dissertation!
Sorry I'm late to the party, Mr. Miranda, but I got here all the same.
My name is Rachel... Lady Blurryface of poets and Rachel the Faire of the Boogie Knights filk group... and I'm a Hamilton nerd after five long years of absolute denial and obsession with Sara Bareilles's Waitress.
Te quiero. Slainte, endeavors. You are stunning. Na-night.
-Rachel Beth Ahrens
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