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

Two Minds: The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo, A New Musical
BYU
January 22-14; 27-31, 2015
Music by Frank Wildhorn
Book and lyrics by Jack Murphy
Directed by Tim Threlfall
Musical direction by Gayle Lockwood
Choreography by Nathan Balser
Creative producer: Jeffrey Martin

Long before my brief stint as a resident of Las Vegas, I was a fan of big spectacle.  Raised on opera, I learned as a child to put my inner playwright on the back shelf and just enjoy the overblown drama, the unearned emotion, and, most of all, the music.  This is also the reason I love large cast musicals.  No judgment about how they got from Point A to Point B; let's just listen to them sing.  Especially when the heroine's songs all fall within my range!  Shut up, inner playwright!  No one was talking to you.

It was in that vein that I enjoyed this new musical adaptation of the classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo.  Folks, they had a body double for two of the main characters so they could fly them across an ocean themed screen and have the characters actually swim across the stage to the hidden cavern.  This was Spectacle (note the capital S!).  I love stuff like that!  I also loved the graphic design of the opening slides, even though I'm not a huge fan of slides-as-exposition.  The drawings of waves moved like waves.  It was supercool.

It was about a third of the way through that my inner playwright started bugging me.  We had just had a beautiful duet between the True Love in a church praying for Our Hero's safe return and Our Hero in the prison, sustained by the mere thought of his True Love.  Great song.  Then Our Hero leaves and the Weaselly Bad Guy attempts to woo True Love.  In time Our Hero returns to the prison part of the scene, but with substantial beard growth.  True Love and the Weasel continue as before.  So are we to suppose that the Weasel persisted over the course of many years before turning True Love's heart to his?  A major plot point refutes that explanation and I once again must say, "Shut up, inner playwright!  No one was talking to you!"

When condensing a lengthy novel for the stage, significant emotional journeys are sometimes (ok, often) reduced to the barest brushstrokes so that we can more easily move from one song to the next.  Sometimes I have to tell myself that surely this is more fleshed out in the novel.  I had to do that at several points in the musical and now I can't decide if I want to ever read the novel.  What if it doesn't give us reason not to hate True Love? I'm holding on to that last thread (remember, all of her songs are in my range so I am inclined at the gut level to like her), because based only on what we see in the musical this is a girl I want to smack.  Hard.

First, she spends a high percentage of her stage time half-raised from the floor, in emotional turmoil.  I can forgive that because I love emotional turmoil songs, but the complexity that I am really hoping is in the novel does not come across in this script.  I am hoping that she married the Weasel because she knew that as a woman in this time period her options were limited and she wanted her unborn child to have the advantages of a male protector.  On stage, she is too dumb to see how bald the Weasel's romantic machinations are, takes his lies at face value, and only requires a couple of awkward, forced hugs to break her will.  Looks like the Weasel really did know best when it comes to True Love.

There are two types of women in this play: those who exist within the patriarchy and those who do not.  Both are somewhat off-putting.  There's True Love (whose whole life is controlled by the actions and decisions of men), Apprentice True Love (who is in love with True Love's son), and the Pirate Queens (who keep a surly, all male pirate crew in line with the power of their cleavage and their propensity for random violence).  I know I'm supposed to like the Pirate Queens because they are so sassy but the whole scenario seemed terribly unlikely.  Honestly, when they first came on stage I wondered if I was still watching the same musical I had been watching.  So the only female character who can say things and be heard and make decisions for herself is pretty much a joke.  And she, too, is helpless when it comes to Our Hero.  He runs the place, folks (with the help of his body double).  Within 5 minutes of meeting Our Hero, the Pirate Queen changes her policy on how a fight to the death ends, changes her destination (by hundreds of leagues), and changes her pirate instincts (did she get even one coin of the treasure?  Did she even try?). The worst was when Our Hero and Mini Me sing about those silly women they love (True Love and Apprentice True Love, respectively).  The women end up looking like porcelain dolls instead of living, breathing human beings and their portrayal throughout the show does pretty much the same thing.

The other time my inner playwright wept was when True Love reveals that Mini Me is actually Our Hero's son (gasp!).  I did not believe their joyous reactions.  Ok, I can believe that Our Hero is joyous about having a son despite being in prison during his prime family-making years.  But Mini Me, who not only just lost the only father he has ever known but was the person who did the killing, is surely not going to have a first reaction of unadulterated joy.  "You mean the alcoholic, abusive man I just killed isn't my father?  It's actually the lying, angry man who ruined my family's good name and who, earlier today, I tried to kill?  Sweet!  And my mom had a secret life she never told me about?  Could this day get any better?"  Shut up, inner playwright!  No one was talking to you!

Based on the standing ovation all around me, though, and the raucous cheering of the four busloads of appreciative high schoolers, nobody else had a pesky inner playwright casting a pall on what was, really, a very fun afternoon of Spectacle and Song.

The moon expanded as they sang louder as a graphic representation of all of their dreams coming true.  If you can't have fun with a magical expanding moon then you, my friend, won't ever have fun.

What Movies Do Best: Thoughts on _Selma_

On hot button issues I tend to follow the example of Mary: "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19).  It's a matter of self preservation.  In most issues you are damned if you do or damned if you don't.  I used to find a good flame war invigorating, but now I can't stand the taste of bile.  Aware of what I don't know, I hesitate to draw a line in the sand.  It seems, too, that there is a deep chasm between the two sides of any issue.  Knowledge and understanding are not acknowledged as malleable and progressive.  You choose a side and view everything through that lens.  The word "ignorant" is hurled back and forth like it was a cardinal sin rather than a universal fact.  I am ignorant.  Love me anyways (as I love you, in your ignorance).  Educate me without rancor (and I will try to return the favor).

With that preamble, I will uncharacteristically share my thoughts on a one such issue (with fear and trembling for the personal ignorance I am sure to reveal).  I didn't really learn any big new facts from the movie Selma.  I am somewhat educated and know my history.  The power of the movie for me was the power of the medium: perspective, empathy, emotion.  Watching the movie with my father I was struck with the realization that he, too, was in his 30's in the 60's--living in the same world and yet in a very different world.  If this struggle was in my immediate background, as close as the man sitting next to me, how would that affect my initial response to the death of a young black man at the hands of a policeman? 

I know this all sounds like Empathy 101 or Things You Learn When You Are Twelve but there is a difference between knowing something intellectually and having it really land emotionally.  The struggle depicted on the screen was not far away at all.  It was right here, within the scope of my immediate family, nearly within the scope of my lifetime.

And as I think of my family's history unfolding alongside these seminal events and yet not seemingly touched by them, I don't have to wonder what it would have been like to experience that.  I'm currently experiencing that.  How much pain is outside the scope of my daily influence?  How many moments are there where I would stand up and be counted if I had any real awareness of them?  This is not to say that my sphere of influence does not contain pain or moments of truth and courage.  But, oh, how I would like to take a stand for truth in all instances.  How I would like to view life from all perspectives, even if only briefly.  How I hope to keep being emotionally educated.  And how I hope we can always do this for each other with love.

[And, yes, I know I promised some musings on a current hot button issue but that mostly got the ax.  That's not my bag, folks.]

Here is a poem I wrote a week or two ago that seems particularly relevant to my musings tonight:

Maps

I’ve been high on life, drunk on love, and addicted to soap operas, but I couldn’t tell you what alcohol tastes like or how random pills you haven’t been prescribed feel when they slip into your brain.

That’s not my path.

No judgment.

It just isn’t mine.

That’s on Main Street; I’m on Center.

If you want a tour guide, I can’t help you with that street.

It isn’t a personal failing not to have first hand, intimate knowledge of every street in town.

That’s what maps are for.  Guidebooks.  Blogs.

Because I’ve been beaten down but never beaten.

I’ve begged for seconds but never for rent.

But I have listened to enough travelers to know that no roads are without rocks.

We all have bloodied feet, even if it isn’t apparent when observed from a distance.

So instead of throwing stones between the blocks, perhaps we should work together on a more comprehensive and detailed atlas.

Restless and Happy

Paint My Eyes
by Jamie Erekson
directed by George D. Nelson
BYU
November 22, 2014

I count it an excellent day at the theater when I leave feeling restless.  In this case, my brain was so restless that I didn't even mind getting caught in the post-football-game traffic because it gave me time to think rather than drive.  I was excited about the piece but also excited about what I'm currently writing and excited to be even a very small part of the process of developing a new piece.  How I miss giving feedback on plays!  How I have missed the collaborative environment of the theater!

The piece was a new musical by Jamie Erekson called Paint My Eyes.  By the time you read this it will have closed but hopefully you will get to see the next incarnation.  One thing I loved about this piece was that it fit into an aesthetic that I try to cultivate in my own work.  It came from a distinctly faithful viewpoint and could be considered faith promoting but it also comes from a place of complexity and depth.  The feel-good moments are hard won and do not diminish the harsh realities.  The beautiful moments were earned by both the characters and the audience and so they were more dear.  This was brought home forcefully by the highly emotional response of one audience member during the talkback session afterwards.  We had trusted the playwright/composer to take us on a journey and, though the journey was difficult, our trust was not misplaced.

The piece explores the experiences of two missionaries against a backdrop of dreams (especially Lehi's dream) and memories.  As we put together the puzzle pieces of Elder Garn's last few months in the mission field our eyes are opened to his struggles and the struggles of those around him.  The deep wounds of the German people are sympathetically wrought and contrasted to the deep wounds in the central storyline.  A depth of emotion is established so that when the revelation of the central wound is finally realized, our hearts are ready.  We see it in context and it lands. Hard.

The humor in the story also serves to further this goal.  Elder Garn's companion is a comic foil for much of the story, constantly calling himself out for his faults (such as perpetual lying) and spectacularly ruining missionary opportunities with hilarious missteps.  This makes the audience listen all the more when he steps into the role of truth teller and facilitates the feeling of redemption at the end of the piece.

The music, too, brought home the themes of the piece.  Difficult and haunting, the music embodied the emotional undercurrent of the play.  My memory of the music is not of specific tunes but of how it seized my heart.  In fact, the music was so fused to the scene that the two can't be separated in my head, which is where the piece will be for a long while--swirling around my brain, making me smile, because being in a theater and wearing the hat of "collaborator" feeds my start and makes my heart happy.

Assigned Seating: A Free Verse Prose-y Poem

Assigned Seating

“Every year they ask for suggestions and every year I make the same one: assigned seating.”

This was the topic of conversation among the survivors of the war-torn auditorium for Time Out for Women.

Bonded by shared suffering, those who had escaped trampling, hand-to-hand combat, and general cattiness settled in for a full day of uplifting religious speakers and performance artists with their nearest and dearest female friends and family.

What a way to set the tone for the day!

Maybe the organizers hadn’t noticed that the seats are numbered and people tend to buy tickets in a block anyhow?

Maybe they don’t realize how bad it is in the trenches?

Where good, Christian women rip reserved signs off chairs without remorse or make their own look-alike signs to sneak in the night before?

Where the mad dash from the long wait on the cold hallway floor makes Black Friday look like a church picnic?

It’s every woman for herself out there and so no hard won ground will be yielded.

But assigned seating would fix all of that.

Yes, assigned seating is the answer.

I wonder how many of these same women attended the first-come-first-served seating event the very next day?

Where all baptized members of the church in the entire state of Utah were invited to gather with their nearest and dearest friends and family for spiritual uplift in the temple and packed meetinghouses across the state, preceded by orderly and loving assembly?

No assigned seating required.