Hamilton: "You strike me as a woman who has never been Satisfied."
Angelica Schuyler: [taken aback] "I'm sure I don't know what you mean - you forget yourself."
Hamilton: "You're like me; I'm never Satisfied."
Angelica Schuyler: "Is that right?"
Hamilton: "I've never been Satisfied."
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| "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can Satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." ~ C.S. Lewis |
5:37pm
It was one of those restaurants that charged $27 for a caprese side salad. But after all, it was New Year's, and we were celebrating.
"A gin and tonic with that, please. Tanqueray, extra lime."
"I'll try the mojito." My mom isn't typically one to drink. Her liver disease causes alcohol to go straight to her head after just a few sips.
"Are you sure, mama?"
"Yes. It's New Year's, and we are celebrating." I couldn't deny her a special treat on a special night, and if the rum was too strong, I would be happy to finish it off for her.
6:17pm
My entree came with half a lemon wrapped up in yellow cheesecloth with a satin green ribbon, so as to keep out the seeds when squeezed over my seared salmon. So fancy. A $14 side of mashed potatoes accompanied, and another gin and tonic, please.
"Another mojito for you, madam?" the waiter inquired of my mom as he crumbed the table.
"Oh, no, thank you," she giggled. "My daughter had to finish my first one off. I think I'm turnt." I looked at her lovingly, with an almost-ache from the intensity of emotion. God, I love you.
7:03pm
The show started in less than half an hour, but the Orpheum theatre was just a couple blocks down 2nd Street on Beale. As we thanked the waiter, I noticed that the couple seated next to us was also standing up to leave. I was struck with disbelief when I saw that the woman had left her glass of wine half-drunk. "Why wouldn't she finish that?!" I thought. What a waste.
7:18pm
As we stood in line for concessions and merchandise, I was deciding between a grey zip-up hoodie with a Hamilton logo on the sleeve, and a purple t-shirt with the words, "I will never be satisfied." I ordered a glass of champagne, and both pieces of merch. Why limit myself to just one? After all, it was New Year's, and we were celebrating.
9:04pm
The bathroom line was long. So was the concessions'. I wouldn't have time to stand in both before Act II. I opted for concessions.
10:28pm
We waited at the Stage Door to meet the cast after the show. Cheers and applause met the actors as they emerged in their street clothes, some with their hoods up and heads down as they made a beeline down the street to escape the crowd, some happy to take photos and sign playbills for eager fans. When it was our turn, I approached the actor who played Hamilton, nothing short of weeping. He turned toward my mom, a look of concern on his face.
"She's always been dramatic," she responded with a look of apology.
10:53pm
The other girls we were with wanted to hit up Beale Street for some Blues and cocktails. I started with my usual - a gin and tonic, please - Tanqueray, extra lime. I remember showing off my Revolutionary War rapping skills to the bartender, and as it always did on late nights at the bar, the cocktails turned into shots. My mom tried to warn me. "Sweetie, I think you've had enough."
"I am not throwing away my shot!" I thought it was a clever reply.
I don't remember much after that. The last photo I have from the night was of a brick bathroom wall, time stamped at 12:25am. The next morning, I crawled into the car to begin the 6 hour car-ride back home with the worst hangover of my life, swearing that I would never touch alcohol again.
***
I had, what society might call, "Made It" at just 28 years old. 2021 was my company's largest grossing year, surpassing seven figures in revenue after just three years in business, and 2022 was looking up. I was married with a beautiful home and two perfect Malamutes whom I like to imagine call me, 'Mom'.
So why wasn't I satisfied? I distinctly remember pulling up to my company one morning and thinking, "Is this it? I've 'arrived'? Now what?" Just like the alcohol, the euphoria had begun to wear off, leaving me feeling worse off than before.
Three months into 2022, I found myself in a dimly-lit room holding in my trembling hands a 24-hour sobriety coin engraved with the words, "To Thine Own Self Be True"; Shakespeare's words that Mrs. M wrote in my 9th grade yearbook.
***
Creatively constipated: The phrase I used to describe how I felt when I didn't have a substance in my body to assist with my creative process. Stephen Sondheim, musical genius and 7-time Tony-award winning Broadway composer, spoke about this in his 2013 documentary, Six by Sondheim. The film explores six of his most notable works and the creative process behind writing them. His process, as a fair amount of musicians can attest to, involves a little help:
"I've often used alcohol as a help in writing. It's very good for loosening up the inhibitions, as long as you don't drink too much. In fact, the only thing I've ever written that's just on water was the score for a movie called 'Stavisky', and I realized it was because I didn't have to write the lyrics."
Another writer named Stephen, Stephen King, that is, quite disagrees. Then again, some of us are unable to not drink 'too much':
"The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are intertwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time...substance abusing writers are just substance abusers - common Garden-variety drunks and druggies, in other words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit...Creative people probably do run a greater risk of alcoholism and addiction than those in other jobs, but so what? We all look pretty much the same when we're puking in the gutter."
Both Stephens are notoriously known for their dark works. As Sondheim stated, "An awful lot of people have gone historically to musicals to forget their troubles, 'Come On, Get Happy'. I'm not interested in that. I'm not interested in making people unhappy, but I'm not interested in not looking at life, because then I don't know why I want to write it otherwise."
The reality is, sometimes life is dark. I think anyone, creatively endowed or not, can attest to that. When you are in the dark, searching for a light can seem like a frantic endeavor, reaching for anything within arms reach to save you.
Let me tell you a Story about another woman who tried to Satisfy her thirst with worldly pleasures. In fact, let's have her tell it*:
***
I went to the well at noon. Sun burning my neck, sweat stinging my eyes, I sighed to think how much heavier that water jar would seem on the journey back. Even the field mice had retreated to the cover of rocks, the sheep to the shade of a lone sycamore.
Most of the women gather at first light, when the dew still clings to the grass and the sun glows soft pink in the sky, their laughter carrying over the countryside like birdsong as they gossip and banter, chide their toddlers and share news. In the desert, wells give and draw life, their waters evocative of the womb. Wells are where God starts something new.
I was not a woman who belonged at a well...
As the sun beat down like a great unseeing eye overhead, I saw a figure seated at the well. A man. I drew closer, spied the knotted tassels on the fringe of his coat confirming he was a Jew, and felt a rush of relief. Good, we won't have to talk. A man in this country rarely speaks to a woman. A Jew to a Samaritan? Never.
At last I reached the well, collapsing on the other side to catch my breath. Somewhere a hawk screeched, her eyes, no doubt, on those field mice.
"Will you give me a drink?"
His voice startled me, like a crack of thunder on a clear day. For a moment, I doubted I'd heard it. What sort of a Jew asked a Samaritan for water? They believed even our pitchers were unclean.
"You are a Jewish man, and I am a Samaritan woman," I said with a laugh, wary of meeting his eyes. "And you're asking me for water?"
"If you knew who I was," he answered, "you'd be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, flowing water, water that is colder and cleaner than this. I would give you the kind of water that you really crave."
Now he had my attention. In spite of my exhaustion, I stood to face him. The man was young, maybe thirty. He had no jar, rope, or buckets. He must have been traveling from Judea to Galilee, but I wondered why he journeyed without companions.
"Artesian water from this well?" I pressed. "Sir, you don't even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. Are you saying you are better than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, along with all his children and livestock? Are you saying you know something he didn't?"
I couldn't help myself. Jews were so smug about religion. No doubt this man never dreamed a Samaritan woman thought of such things.
"Everyone who drinks water from this well will get thirsty again," he said. "But whoever drinks the water I offer will remain Satisfied, for they will have a gushing spring inside of them that never runs dry."
"Well then give me some of that water!" I laughed, playing along. "Then I won't have to hike out to this well every day."
The man fell silent. Assuming I'd offended him, I prepared my bucket and lowered it into the well. Of course I planned to give the stranger the first drink. Samaritans, for all you've heard of us, honor the customs of hospitality.
"Go call your husband and come back," he said, breaking the silence.
My jaw clenched.
"I have no husband," I said.
"Indeed you don't. You've had five husbands, haven't you? And the man you live with now is not one of them."
Five.
This man knew more than what local gossip could carry. He knew my secret. He knew me.
Shaking, I let the rope slip. My bucket plunged into the water, and I staggered backward.
"I see you're a prophet," I said, sitting down.
The man said nothing in reply, so for a while we just sat there together under the sun, sweating and thirsty, a strange understanding growing between us. He went to the well and pulled the bucket up.
"So tell me something," I said, recovering my courage. "Samaritans say the place of rightful worship is that mountain over there, but Jews say it is in Jerusalem. Who is right?"...
"Don't worry about that," he answered, a smile in his voice. "Salvation will come through the Jews, yes, but it will be for all people. The day is coming when all the barriers between us will collapse. God is Spirit, after all, and Truth. You can't build a temple around Spirit. You can't lock Truth in a shrine. The kind of worship God wants is the kind of worship without walls."
He paused.
"But you know that already, daughter, don't you? You have known all along."
He crouched down and looked me straight in the eyes, seeing me in a way no man had ever seen me before.
"They say a Messiah will come and make all these things plain," I ventured from the ground.
"I - the one speaking to you - am He."
At that, he handed me the bucket of water. I brought it to my lips, lifted my head, and drank deep of the coolest, richest water I ever tasted. I drank and drank and drank. I drank until I could no longer breathe.
When I finished, I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and handed the bucket back to the man, who, to my amazement, threw his head back and gulped the rest of it down, dousing his dusty face with the last splash that remained. For a moment, I doubted what I'd just witnessed. This man, this Jew - this Messiah - drank from my defiled cup. And with relish.
He saw my surprise and laughed, the deep belly laugh of a man who sees our religious absurdities for what they are. I joined him, all the tired and thirsty cells in my body awake with life once again. It was like giving birth and being born at the same time.
We laughed and dried our faces until we realized a crowd had gathered. At least ten men, all of them Jews, stood around us, faces stricken.
The man, whom they called Teacher, assured his friends that no laws had been broken, then told the men to prepare for a longer stay.
"We'll be feasting with Samaritans tonight," he declared.
I'm certain that in spite of myself, I beamed.
I had to tell someone, but who? My household hated me. My friends were uneducated peasants with little influence over public affairs. Would anyone believe me? Could anyone understand?
There was Miriam, of course, the slave. And Mara, the prostitute. The baker always liked a good Story, and maybe those shepherd boys would too.
As more names and faces came to my mind, my feet moved faster. I ran over the hillside and past the sycamore.
The widow next door could host a banquet. The blind beggar from the alley would certainly come. Perhaps the lepers of Ebal would join us for supper, and maybe a tax collector or two.
My feet pounded the ground as the town came into view.
We could gather figs, bake bread, drink wine, I thought. We could fill a house with hungry and thirsty people, people ready to laugh again, and eat, and start something new. We could put flowers on the table. We could sing old songs.
I made it all the way to Sychar before I even noticed.
I'd left my water jar behind.
*taken from Rachel Held Evans' Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again.
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