By Linda Hummel of Just Left Awkward, Suddenly Approaching Old

I came to my obsession with Lin-Manuel Miranda much later than most people. I didn’t discover him until well after tickets to Hamilton had reached mortgage-payment levels. So I tried my best to catch up without actually ever seeing the play. I searched news stories and You Tube videos about him, and – if I do say so myself – I did pretty well at becoming a fan of the first order without, you know, being a complete stalker.

The pieces of his life that struck me most, though, weren’t the obvious. Not the trips to the White House, or the interviews where he told about his dismal days as a DJ at Bar Mitzvahs in Queens, or how his bus driver taught him old-school rap on his long rides to and from school in New York City. It was watching him on the videos his parents had saved of him — holding court — when he was a little boy.

My favorite is when he is about eight years old. He is doing a video book report on The Pushcart War. As narrator, he’s dressed in a little boy suit and tie, reading from copy. He changes into costume several times as the plot progresses. His father is behind the camera, his sister in charge of cue cards. In one extended scene, his mother, his abuela, and his great-grandmother play the parts of striking teachers, marching around the room, holding signs and chanting. Convincingly.

When I was eight, book reports were relegated to pencils and lined paper. But I recall with great clarity, the times I got it into my head that I could sing or dance (usually at the same time) with the likes of Doris Day or Peggy Lee. I would prance down the stairs into the living room, where my parents would already be seated on the couch, waiting for my rendition of a song I’d heard on the radio. Standing ovations every time. It never once occurred to me I was mediocre at best. Never once. That realization came to me much later, slowly, when I had moved on to my next potential occupation. I decided I’d be a writer instead. My parents changed course accordingly.

These days I spend lots of my time with a little boy who’s four. He is partial to acting out Fairy Tales in great detail, with voices and inflection we marvel at. He’s not shy about giving out (or abruptly rescinding) speaking parts to the adults in the room. We’re all thrown into the narrative, whatever it is at that moment. We have no idea if he will still be loving this so much in another year, or if we’ll be riding another train with him by then.

Broadway was a long way off on the day of Lin’s video book report. But everyone in the room knew their parts by heart and played them with relish anyway. They circled around him, holding their props and reciting their lines. And saying — without saying it directly — “This is the most terrific kid ever.”

I turned out to be a pretty pitiful singer and dancer. On the other end of the spectrum, Lin-Manuel Miranda is finding the world crazy in love with his talent. Isn’t it funny, then, that he and I have something in common?  Those moments when you remember their beaming faces, taking a bow, hearing the applause. We both came from a home of standing ovations.

This post was originally published on Just Left Awkward, Suddenly Approaching Old

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About the Author

I’m a Baltimore-based freelancer, who has been writing about motherhood, children, and education since Jimmy Carter was in the White House. My blog, Just Left Awkward, Suddenly Approaching Old, is found at www.lindadhummel.com. I’ve been published in most major newspapers and many women and parenting magazines. I’ve recently completed a memoir, “I Haven’t Got All Day” and spend most days looking for an email from my agent.