Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,212

first song of the musical, sung by the composer himself before the play had even been finished. That one was at the White House, in front of the president. In it, there was a line that had become ironically funny to her in the last week.

The cast was singing about this boy’s early life, and they proclaimed that there would come a day when the world would know his name. At that point, the lead actor introduced the main character with the simple line, “Alexander Hamilton.”

Even Taylor had to laugh with the audience because who had even heard of Alexander Hamilton other than a couple of lines in history books? It was so surprising because prior to this simple introduction, had you heard the build-up of this super-famous person, you would have thought Washington, Jefferson, or at least Madison or Adams. But no, “Alexander Hamilton,” not proclaimed but rather uttered as if he was apologizing for the fact or scared to death to be introduced to the world.

It was as if he was saying just by the tone and pacing, “Please, please, don’t throw me off the stage or pitch me in the dustbin of history. Really, I have a great life story if you will just take the time to hear it.” All that, in one simple name. And the crazy ironic part was, that the world did learn his name in ways that would have been unimaginable had someone not taken the time to write a book that inspired a composer to write the story down and add melodies and rhymes to it. Now, his story, his name would forever be a part of her life and her story.

After watching those two videos, she got hooked into a whole new one about the central motifs in Hamilton. She vaguely remembered studying motifs in high school and then for like ten seconds in college. The way she had learned it, motifs were simply repeating elements of a story. But that was only in literature class where all you had were words. That had nothing on this.

Complex was a word that had never meant as much before. Watching and contemplating the sheer number and depths of the motifs—story elements, musical elements, prop elements, staging, choreography, lighting, rhyming elements, even basic melodic elements—in Hamilton made her marvel in awe at the unfathomable depths of the mind that had created it and brought it all to life. Incredibly simple words and phrases like helpless, satisfied, and wait for it all took on waves of depth and meaning as they undulated through the play. Layer upon layer upon layer until it became a mesmerizing weaving of ambition, abandonment, hope, fear, love, anger, betrayal, hatred, and ultimately death.

Taylor knew at one point that Greg had gotten up and gone back to the bedrooms, but with her earbuds in, she didn’t hear him when he came back in and leaned on the back of her chair to watch. Just when she first noticed him there, she didn’t know, but when she looked up, she jumped like a salmon swimming upstream. “Uh.” She ripped out her earbuds. “Can I help you?”

Shrugging, Greg went around the chair and back to the couch. “Just trying to figure out why you’re watching that again. It’s not like we have to write about it or anything.”

“Because it’s fascinating, that’s why.”

“I mean, it was okay but…” He leaned back on the couch, clearly taking a break.

“Okay? It’s a masterpiece!”

“A masterpiece? Wow. Okay?”

She fought to try to put any of it into words. “Remember the 10-gallon thing?”

It took him a second to locate the memory. “Yeah. Like how you’re trying to fill up 10-gallon you with a one-pint everybody else?”

“Yeah, that.” Dropping her gaze to the screen, she let her mind unfurl for a second. “That’s what this feels like, like I just found a million-gallon reservoir, and I just want to drink and drink and drink until I can’t drink anymore. And then process that much and come back to it and drink some more.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“It’s like in art,” she said, gaining steam the more she was allowed to think the thoughts, “or at Bishop Castle or Meow Wolf. Seeing it, experiencing it, understanding it just makes me want to uncover every fascinating thing about it.”

“You haven’t yet?”

“No. Not even close. Like the music motifs,” she said, not realizing she should temper her enthusiasm for his sake, “it’s like the same thing repeated in different ways makes it mean more. Like