An Open Letter to Sonic Drive-In

March 20, 2016                     

Sonic Drive-In

300 Johnny Bench Dr

Oklahoma City OK 73104

Dear Sonic,

If taken literally, your promise to deliver “service with the speed of sound” has never been fulfilled but my experience generally has been service with an acceptable wait. Any wait when you are hungry is hard to endure, but our food always arrived well before we began to think concretely about cannibalism. Just as I was thinking, “Please, please, please, we’re dying out here!” two feet would appear under the sign and happiness would ensue. 

It was the promise implicit in your name that brought us to your Springville, Utah store.  We had left an event in a neighboring town and the children, hepped up on adrenalin from being a part of a huge celebration for the new LDS temple, didn’t want to go straight home.  They wanted a treat. As we drove by the BYU Creamery we saw a huge line and, remembering past waits in the ice cream line, decided to go a little further out from the venue and find a treat closer to home. We pulled into the parking lot at Sonic and saw six or seven cars at the drive-up window and several parking spots open. I decided I didn’t feel like idling for 10 minutes so I pulled into a parking spot, ordered, and paid.  And waited.  

At the point where, on any other visit, those two feet would appear under the sign, my seven year old daughter announced that she had to go to the bathroom. We had never had this issue at Sonic before so I didn’t even know if they *had* a public restroom. Plus I thought our food was imminent and I could neither send my 7 year old alone to find a bathroom nor leave my other daughter alone in the car while we did. And what would happen if our food came and nobody was in the car? I asked her if she could possibly hold it just a little longer. At 25 minutes into our wait I pushed the red button again to see if our order had been lost. He assured me they were working on it and would bring it out as soon as they could. 

At 30+ minutes, we all got out of the car and went to the door of the kitchen. A man in a headset came out quickly to see what we wanted. I told him about my daughter’s bathroom need and how long we had been waiting for our food. At this point we had spent 45 minutes trying to get out the parking lot of the Marriott Center not because it took that long to exit after an event but because the car at the head of the lane I had parked in was not willing to inch forward and nuzzle his way into the lane of cars that had a direct exit onto the road. Essentially, he was waiting for the entire parking lot to empty before trying to get out and we were all held captive by the parked cars on either side of our doomed line. It was incredibly infuriating. Also, we had been up and working on the presentation at the Marriott Center since 6 that morning.  You can imagine, then, how exhausted I was at 10:30 pm. You can imagine how forcefully I let the guy in the headset know how unacceptable this long wait was. He asked which order was ours and assured us he would hurry things along. We went to the bathroom and then back to the car thinking that at any minute our order would arrive. It would take another 15 minutes. 

I was pretty much boiling by the time those two feet appeared. She explained that there had been a large event (which we well knew) and that they had hoped some people would give up and leave but nobody did. I told her that we absolutely would have left if they hadn’t already TAKEN OUR MONEY. Also, did the people at the drive-up window wait 45 minutes to an hour? She was silent on that point but I knew they hadn’t. So as we sat there waiting for our food, who knows how many people butted ahead of us in line simply because we chose to park instead of idle? Is this honestly how Sonic does business? Choosing to turn off your car (an environmentally friendly thing we are encouraged to do) means choosing to be the LAST priority? You don’t have to answer that because I already know it is true. Not only did I watch it play out in front of my eyes, I crowd sourced it on Facebook. It’s not just a Springville, Utah thing. It’s a Sonic thing. And it is completely unacceptable.

How Much of This is Based on Real Life?

Keeping Clocks
Microburst Theatre Festival
BYU
January 13-16, 2016

I was in the car, driving, when my daughter said, "Mom, are you doing that conversation again?" That's when I realized I had been muttering under my breath, taking a second look at all of my responses, trying to make sure I hadn't sounded like an idiot.  I do it all the time.

It's basically mental/verbal proofreading, except I can't hold off on hitting "submit' until after I give the conversation a once over so it's more like proofreading your IMs, which I also do. My coworkers have learned to humor me when I resubmit a message to correct typos. I'm a writer. Revising is what I do.

That's why a talkback session after a show of mine is both exciting and daunting.  I want to hear your impressions and field your questions, but I also want to ponder everything for a while and get back to you with my third draft response. So here it is. In the hopes of mitigating how much this reveals about my personality, I will only address one of the talkback questions (the one I blundered through the worst).

Thoughtful Audience Member: How much of this is based on real life?

Playwright: This show is actually unusual in that it is very closely tied to actual events in my life. Generally speaking, the truth of my plays is in the emotion and not so much in the literal details.  But, as it happens, I am a mother and I have rocked my baby and wished I could hold that moment forever.  And I am personal friends with Father Time.  Oops.  Ok, that part wasn't literal.  But I remember very distinctly when my youngest daughter was tiny and my world was pure chaos.  At three weeks old her father announced he was leaving, which came as a total shock to me.  My days were spent trying to process this and deal with a very rapidly changing universe. When it came time to rock my baby to sleep, I was exhausted. Rocking her to sleep was a sanctuary for me. The room was quiet and dark. I was holding a small, warm bundle of unconditional love. I had no desire to leave that moment and return to the craziness of the rest of my life.

It stuck with me as something to write about over all of these years. (Actually, many years ago I asked my friend Sam Day to capture the moment in a painting and he reminded me that I could write about it!  I blame Mommy Brain for that oversight.) I first wrote about it in the poem Rocking Baby to Sleep (see below). Then I let it percolate. I revised the poem. Percolate. Revised. Percolate. Turned it into a play.

My thought was that I was writing about the universal cry of "Don't grow up!" that is found on nearly every baby photo ever posted on social media. I wanted to pay homage to the loveliness of the moment when you rock your baby to sleep, knowing I was viewing this moment from the better rested position of a mom with older kids (7 and 12) and knowing the sentiments were tainted by chronic baby hunger.

Then I went to the first day of tablework for the play and saw it from a different perspective entirely. All around the table came observations and questions about things that absolutely were present in the text but that I had not yet stepped back and viewed.  I honestly thought I was telling a straightforward based-on-real-life type story (with that caveat about the fictitious character) but I was really writing about something that was not directly translated onto the stage. That play was considerably more interesting and rich than the sweet, direct homage I had started with.

This is not to say that I rewrote the play entirely based on the tablework, but observations like "there isn't a father in this play" pricked my unconscious thought to the forefront and I realized that I was also writing about the other big loss in that scenario: the loss of my husband. Looking at the choices I had made in the draft I could see myself grappling with the differences in the way we experience our children and my ongoing process of mourning the man I fell in love with. The play doesn't literally talk about any of that, but it's all about all of that and the process of writing and producing this play had an important impact on my actual life. So it's based on real life and it impacts real life and when my daughter, who I haven't rocked to sleep in years, cried herself to sleep about the father she doesn't know, I rocked her and kissed her sweet head and rather than wish for times past I relished a quiet moment where time didn't stand still but I could feel the tandem ticking of our heartbeats.

So this, dear audience member, is why the most truthful answer to your question is....

Everything.  And nothing.

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Rocking Baby to Sleep

I sit in the glider next to the crib, your tiny body heavier at the end of the day than at the beginning.

You settle your head between my chin and collar bone and we glide back and forth, back and forth.

One little arm wraps around me, one little arm rests on my chest.

Two big arms wrap around you with a hand on your pink pajama’d back.

Two little legs stick out to the left, two big legs point to the right.

Occasionally you kick your feet or raise your head, smile and thunk it down again heavily.

On wiggly days I stand up to prevent your escape from my lap.

Your legs splay around my waist and my arms slip under your bum.

When you are still too wiggly I ask, “Do you want to lay down in your crib and listen to your music?”

Some days you nod and I kiss you good night.

Some days you thunk your head down and snuggle up.

When your eyes are halfway closed I sit down again.

I rock you longer than is absolutely necessary.

Sometimes I take a little nap before charging into the rest of the night.

Mostly I breathe in your baby sweetness, kiss whatever is nearest my lips

and tell myself “Remember this! Remember this! Remember this!”

Keeping Clocks (final lines)

FATHER TIME

To you she is a living, growing, real person. All I have is a fraction of her in my pocket. You don’t want my view of the world.

MOTHER

My view is a window seat on a bullet train until I sit in this quiet room and you stop time so I can feel the ticking of her clock.

(FATHER TIME pulls out a very small clock from his pocket.)

FATHER TIME

Hold it for a minute and you’ll see that it’s better to have time than to just hold it.

(FATHER TIME reaches out to hand the clock to her. She takes it and their hands are still somehow tangled together.)

FATHER TIME

Is that yours?

MOTHER

It’s the same as hers.

FATHER TIME

But yours is still in my pocket.

MOTHER

I can feel it. Every second is there, present tense and past tense. In the rushing of my blood, the tandem ticking of our heartbeats.

Be my valentine?

This was the question the library asked:

This was my answer:

This was The Monkey's:

(E.L. abstained)

Well, I guess the love of my life remains unrequited.  Figures.

With Special Thanks to Brene Brown for the Vocabulary

The best part about being on a contentious chatboard was firing off a blood-rushing, eye-brow pulsing ball of righteous indignation. With the personal element removed, everything was stunningly black and white.  Anyone who disagreed was obviously an idiot (or worse). These no-holds-barred conversations were more about high-fiving people on my team than about changing anyone's mind on key issues and that was fine. This was a good, old-fashioned, adrenalin-filled snowball fight: keep throwing until you run out of ammunition and then take a look around to see who is still standing. I did that for several years before deciding to bow out.

It was actually pretty hard to walk away from the snowball fight because I love a good rush of adrenalin.  But these were not powdery snowballs, disintegrating as they flew and landing with a playful thump.  These were icy snowballs--hard packed snow wrapped around a chunk of ice, frozen again, and lobbed, rapid-fire, at somebody's head. They were words said in anger and received in anger among strangers who didn't have any reason to trust each other. When I looked at it objectively it was a waste of time and energy.

Eventually I stopped having off-the-cuff snowball fights in real life too. In the spirit of choosing my battles, I chose silence.  I couldn't trust that people would be generous in their assumptions as I worked through my thoughts out loud. In political and religious discussions, people rarely are.  Here in Utah there is no subject where this is more true than homosexuality and the LDS church.  Think you know my thoughts on this subject?  I doubt you do.  But I'm not choosing silence today.  And the reason I'm not is because I want to trust you.

I've moved around a bit in my life but now, for the first time in my adult life, I'm really putting down roots.  I've had ties to Utah my whole life, went to BYU as an undergrad, and have visited Utah County for major holidays for 20+ years but I still feel a bit new around town because it was only a few years ago that we moved here with no intention of moving away.  So I have long time long-distance friends that I'm figuring out close-proximity friendship with and I have formerly-close-proximity friends that I'm figuring out long-distance friendship with. I also have a big group of new friends that I am building trust with.  I love the metaphor for building trust that Brene Brown uses in her talk The Anatomy of Trust: a jar of marbles.

I am very aware, lately, of the small things that add or take away marbles from your friendship/trust jar--simply showing up (or simply not showing up), answering a text (or letting silence shut down the conversation), speaking your mind with compassion (or speaking your mind in anger). It's that last one that has been cutting deeply in the past few weeks.  Like the contentious chatboard, social media creates an environment where you have niche conversations with like-minded people that are actually broadcast widely.  I'd like to believe that if you were looking right at my face you would choose your words more carefully but the reality is that you didn't.  And you lost marbles from your jar.  Those of you who had precious few marbles left lost your jar entirely.

It's not just people who have jars; institutions can earn or lose trust too.  This is why even though I was shocked and upset when I read the updated pages of the LDS church handbook that were leaked in November, I did not denounce anything or anyone.  The church has earned a lot of marbles with me.  I wholeheartedly believe that a prophet of God is on the earth. That is not something to take lightly. I also believe in taking time to see the whole picture and to let things percolate in my brain (I'm still in that process currently).

I love all of you--those who have lost the very last marble in their church jar, those whose jars are overflowing, those who live in a black-and-white world, and those who truly see where the colors blend.  I welcome a thoughtful, in-person discussion with any one of you.  But leave your icy snowballs--your snarky memes, your hateful language, your assertions that "in the Last Days more persecution will come from within the church than without"--out in the cold where they belong.



P.S. Apologies to those who thought I was going to weigh in on the specifics of the controversy online. I thought I was going to as well. Turns out I wasn't.

Not For the Faint of Heart

Pilot Program
by Melissa Leilani Larson
Plan B Theater
April 18, 2015

On the drive up I resolved to see fewer shows in Salt Lake City.  The logistics just about did me in.  All of my good intentions about giving myself plenty of time to make the Herculean drive past the Point of the Mountain dissolved into 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there (my only consolation is that I will return to a weed free house with clean counters and folded laundry). In the end I was yelling at my children, driving faster than one ought to, and making muttered offerings to the traffic and parking gods.  And resolving not to do this again.  We have talented artists in Utah County.  Maybe Salt Lake City theater is something to do when the children are grown.  Darn you, Plan B, for undermining my perfectly logical resolution.

I arrived at my seat with 1.5 minutes to spare. Long enough for pleasant chatter with the folks on either side of me.  Long enough to absorb the beautiful set before it became a more practical work of art. It was a basic living room set with lamps everywhere--as if the space itself was grasping desperately for light. It was all a very gauzey, warm glow with curves and soft corners everywhere. I loved how the lamps and lanterns extended far above the traditional living room space (heavenward?) with three large globes, each higher than the last, which made me think of the three degrees of glory. It had the effect of making heaven ever present in the show. Into this space the show was born for the third-to-last time.

The main character and narrator, Abby, sat on the couch and gently wove such beautiful lines that the performance poet in me almost snapped my fingers as a reflex gesture of solidarity and appreciation. There were so many moments like that in the play, generally when Abby had a monologue. One in particular stands out: the monologue about the dripping faucet. Not only was the image gorgeously evoked and the perfect illustration of the situation, the very image of this woman sitting in the kitchen studying the dripping faucet in this level of detail was a heartbreaking commentary.

But let me dial back to the opening scene again. We are presented with a faithful LDS couple who have just returned home from an interview with an area authority where they were asked to be part of a pilot program for the reinstatement of polygamy. They are as rattled as most people would be, with the wife (Abby) more unsettled than the husband (Jake). Jake was very supportive, one of those "truly good guys." I liked him, but by the end he really bugged me because he had no spine and no true spiritual center. Abby refers to herself as the "broken" one, but she's the one truly seeking the Spirit. Jake doesn't seem to have his own opinion on the situation until it's already done. When he assumes she is upset because she doesn't want to do it he bends over backwards to assure her that he's ok with that and that they will be spiritually fine with that. When she makes the decision to do it, he does as he is told (with very little pushback). I'm not saying he's a horrible person or anything but, good gravy, did you really just do something as big as take a second wife without seeking your own confirmation??

It made for an interesting dynamic, though, to have the polygamous marriage not be male-driven at all in the context of the play (setting aside the whole called-by-an-all-male-church-leadership-to-do-it-in-the-first-place thing). It's very much a love affair between the two women in the beginning (not a romantic love affair but more of a kindred spirits situation). This doesn't last, though, as the romantic love affair begins between Jake and the proclaimed younger version of Abby (Heather). They are all good people trying to make the best of the situation but the inevitable fracturing is, well, inevitable. Between the strict "visitation" schedule and the aching loneliness, it feels less like a marriage than like a joint custody agreement. There are flashes of loveliness (like the crossword puzzle) but it's never enough to recover from the punch-to-the-gut rawness that lurks under the surface of all of their interactions. That's what really touched a nerve for me because I know that loneliness, I know that rawness, I know what it's like to lose your husband.

Some people feel that these are the sorts of marriages we'll all have in heaven and if this play is an accurate representation of heaven I'd probably be the first resident of heaven's luxurious padded cells (with the straight jackets made of minky fabric. Soooo soft.  Mmmmm). I'm sure equally interesting plays could be written from the perspective of Jake and Heather and would illustrate what they've lost too, but this is Abby's story and it's Abby we see losing pieces of herself as the story progresses. We see this quite literally as she removes coats, sweaters, and jewelry piece by piece, with no fanfare. She just keeps giving bits of herself away until in the end she gives away her voice and her husband comments that she seems to have disappeared. In the final moment of the play we see the original couple on the couch we started on, having one of those tiny, lovely moments. With the weight of the play behind it, though, it isn't lovely. It's wrenching. They had a beautiful marriage. And now they are connected forever but still essentially single. They share space but they are no longer a unit. There is just so much more pain there than love.

It made me think of two things: how whitewashed the scriptural version of Lehi's exodus from Jerusalem must seem when compared with a realistic depiction of the sacrifices and hardships they endured and also the words of the hymn O My Father. "In the heavens are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare." I don't know how this issue will play out in the eternities (or even in this life, as pointed out in the opening scene), but I hope that Eliza R Snow was truly inspired when she penned that "truth is reason." Or at least I hope that when I have my husband in the eternities I won't still feel single.

The Review Where I Try Not to Be a Spoiler (But Readers Should Still Be Alert)

As a writer, my reaction to something well written (be it play, movie, novel, poem, advertising copy...) is usually "Dang!  I wish I had written that!"  It was on my lips as I left the movie theater after watching the movie Freetown (and in the back of my head for the two hours prior).

One thing I loved was how seeds of future actions or plot turns were carefully sewn into the script without feeling forced or out of place. For instance, a fun scene illustrating street contacting in Monrovia effortlessly establishes that an elder is having a hard time with a cold contact approach to proselyting ("opening your mouth").  This elder later opens his mouth at just the right time, which was immensely satisfying.  Little moments like that are found throughout the movie, making it feel like all of the little threads have a through-line.

The journey of the movie is both a physical journey to Freetown and a spiritual journey for the man charged with keeping the missionaries safe.  This charge bookends the events in the movie and spurs him on in the physical journey, which moves him along in his spiritual journey too.  Issues of faith and practicality are the central struggle in the story but the script doesn't sermonize.  A well placed word or phrase (or no words at all) speak more than a monologue could.  The write trusted the powerful images on the screen and did not let the characters talk more than they ought to.

The movie shines in many aspects, of course, (not just the writing) and the story itself (a true one) is incredibly compelling.  There were shots that created images not soon forgotten--the line of baptismal candidates queued up beneath the lookout holding a semi-automatic rifle, the convert on the bus with religious icons on the window behind her, the return of one man when two were expected (with just the closing of the door and no words).  It felt like every shot was rich with information about life in Africa, life as an African missionary, and life as an African Latter-Day Saint.  My heart thrilled to see their faith and courage.

The only complaint I had (besides wondering sometimes why no one thought to barter with those big, shiny watches they were wearing) was that there was one character we don't quite see safely to the end of his story.  Those of you who have watched the movie might know who I'm talking about.  The rest of you should stop reading right now because I won't be able to rest until I know......

What happened to our LDS rebel friend??  I half expected him to come tumbling out of the car on the ferry but he was nowhere to be seen.  I love that he made his stand at the end, but he still seems very unsettled to me. Where did he go? What were the consequences of his bold action? Earlier we are given to believe that helping the missionaries would have dire consequences but the bad guy seems so thwarted at the end that I don't feel like his threat is credible anymore and yet I don't know for sure that this is the case. Also, the rebel is asked several times to join the group fleeing but he chooses to stay with the rebel group. Then he breaks with the rebels but doesn't join the fleeing group? Perhaps this is a minor point, but it stands out as a loose thread when all other threads are so beautifully tied off.

Overall, this was a highly engaging film. I enjoyed watching it and encourage you to do the same. This film with stick me for a long time (and not just because I dearly wish I had been the one to write it).

Eat Like a Girl

Dear Readers,

I wanted to bring this to your attention in case you, too, have been upset by seemingly "small" ways that our girls are told that being who they are is a pejorative.   If you see something like I describe in my letter below, please speak up!  And if you feel thus inclined on this issue, please write Cubby's and let them know it bothers you too or blog/tweet/post about it with the hashtag #EatLikeAGirl #LikeAGirl

February 11, 2015

Cubby's Chicago Beef

1258 North State Street

Provo, Utah 84604

Dear Cubby's,

I had the great experience of discovering your restaurant last week in Provo.  The servers were polite and friendly.  The food was wonderful.  The atmosphere was fun.  The menu wall was engaging and infuriating.  I know you’ve heard about this before because when I posted the following picture (see below) on my Facebook page one of my friends said that she complains about it every time she goes to Cubby's.  I’m talking about the designation of the levels of spiciness as “girl, boy and man.”  Yes, I know it is meant to be in keeping with the fun loving atmosphere of the restaurant.  It was a joke.  We should all just laugh it off or, if it really bugs us, go eat somewhere else.  But I really like your food and I’d like to keep eating there.  In order to do that, I can’t just remain silent on this issue.  It bothers me that it is still considered ok to characterize women and girls, across the board, as being less than or weaker than men.  There are a hundred other fun-loving ways to designate the levels of spiciness of the food.  Why was this designation chosen?  What message is it sending?  Yes, this is one tiny little thing.  But our girls are bombarded with tiny little things that define them as less than.  The weight of all of these tiny little things adds up.  As we saw in the excellent Always commercial during the Super Bowl, young girls don’t recognize being a girl is a pejorative until we teach them it’s a pejorative.  Please don’t be one of the voices teaching my daughters that to be who they are is the weakest thing on the menu.

Marianne Hales Harding