how i learned to swim

while actually not learning to swim and becoming a playwright instead

My junior year of college, I wrote Jesus at the Well. Anyone who has known me since then knows that this play was my first love, well, second love. Second only to Jensen Ackles¹.

This play was originally meant for my mother. I love my mother. I adore my mother. She’s great. We have a toxic, co-dependent relationship. Anyways. It was meant for my mother to be a dialogue between me, her, and Jesus.

Then I realized that idea sucked and was obnoxious so I scrapped it.

When I used to listen to Steven Furtick on my walks, I was struck by the story in John 4 about the woman at the well.

“Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. but those who drink the water I give them will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

John 4:13-14

Jesus walked across the desert just to sit with a sinning woman. Just to talk with her, listen to her at the well. To tell her He knew her, He understood her, He was there for her. They sat at the well, this metaphor of thirst and wanting and He told her he saw her.

If no other story in the Bible moves me, this one always will.

I’m a huge water metaphor girlie even though I don’t know how to swim. Perhaps that’s why I’m obsessed with it. The summer before I left Waco forever, my friends tried to teach me. I had no bathing suit, didn’t shave, felt wholly unprepared². I tried to float, couldn’t let myself relax. The time when I actually did relax, say Lauryn, you’ve got this bud, I almost drowned.

But I didn’t. Cause that would’ve been embarrassing for me. Similar to how choking victims go into bathrooms to choke in peace.

When I was outlining the play, I had long conversations with my playwriting professor. What did I want out of this play? What was I trying to say? What was it about?

Still, I don’t know how to describe it. If people ask, I just say: It’s about a girl who wants to go on a date.³

Pretty simple, right?

Nope.

As a deconstructing follower of Christ, I’ve been asking the hard questions about my faith. Why things happen, why they continue happening, why nobody seems to be able to stop them from happening. Why are people the way they are, why can’t they change, why don’t they want to change?

My main character is one of these people. She’s thirsty for life, knows that she has to change, refuses to do so. She works at a country club, meets a guy, wants to go on a date with said guy. Things ensue, she fights with her parents, her parents fight, she fights with her sister, with herself and the phantasmal manifestation of her crush. Huh, what is Lauryn talking about?

I don’t know! I kind of know. But I don’t really know.

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Playwriting came to me at the perfect time in my life. It was my second semester back on campus and I needed a win. Sure, I was in a show. It was a fun show. But I cried every day that first semester. Called my mom. Walked home in the dark because I was too embarrassed to ask for rides.

Quick PSA: having a car in college really helps a lot. if people say, “oh you don’t need a car in college,” they’re lying to your face. and they most definitely have a car. but! don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. of course, offer gas money and stuff. luckily, i lived like 2 minutes from campus so it wasn’t too out of the way for some people, but still, be mindful. and don’t walk in the dark because you’re going through a deluge of self-pity :)

My counselor said I was going through the kind of shock that students who study abroad have. Everything was alien. Nothing was mine.

I wasn’t in my right mind. I dabbed and ran when my professor said my performance of “Somewhere That’s Green” made him want to direct Little Shop. Don’t be like me.

Anyways, where was I?

Oh yes, playwriting.

I only took the class because I couldn’t take an honors class. I needed something to fill my schedule. Usually, people will take short-form first. There were four of us in the class. Only one of us had previous experience in short and long form. I dived headfirst and haven’t looked back.

My first outlines and stylized works sent my professor in a frenzy. He told me that he enjoyed what I was writing, was excited about it, and that I reminded him of Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive.

I thought, that’s great! Look at me, I remind him of a prolific playwright. All this without actually reading plays.

I don’t like reading plays. I’m fine…ish watching them. But reading them is a real pain. Weird, I know.

So, I read the play. It was fine. It was good. I would’ve preferred to see it performed but alas, them’s the breaks.

With a newfound knowledge of style and intent, I was “ready” to write.

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Now, the problem with writing a play centered around Black characters is a white mentor and audience. Most of the people in my department were white. What a shocker. So, if I wanted to have a monologue about hair— Wait, let me just show you and we’ll work through it together.

You’re faceless. I still see you, though. Slight auburn curls that you push back with strong hands, each strand mine alone. You let me run my fingers through it, play with it, twist it, braid it horribly. I’d never tell you what to do with your hair. You’d never tell me what to do with mine. But you’d offer to wash, plait, loc, twist it…anything. Your fingers, although thick, would weave intricate, delicate patterns along my scalp, massaging and praising, and whining with me when you pull too tightly. You’d buy me silk scarves, remind me to wear them to bed, find one lost behind the couch. I’d pull your curls, too. More waves than curls but I love having something that makes us similar. Something that makes us fit. Something that perfectly allows us to love each other in our imperfect way.

This is the beginning monologue of the third act. My main character, Sam, is in a dreamlike state fantasizing about the boy she likes. They’re dancing while she speaks, she’s holding onto him with a silk scarf, hoping that he stays with her.

The first draft of this monologue stumped my professor. He had no idea why hair was so important to her. I didn’t feel like explaining. I didn’t think I had to. I just said that it’s something that’s very important in Black culture and we left it there.

It’s simple in its intimacy and it’s a real shame that the majority of those who watched the staged reading couldn’t understand it. But, ultimately, it was not my goal to make people understand. That’s not why I write. I write because I want to, I enjoy it, and I feel like I have something to say.

Most of the people who have read my play have been white. Shoutout to my friend Asia who’s actually Black and had hours-long conversations with me about my multiple drafts. Aside from her, only white people have actually finished the play.

I submitted my second to final draft for a new works class at my alma mater. Two white men asked me questions about my wording and the context and I didn’t want to explain what I was talking about. It’s not that I’m trying to have my work be unattainable and esoteric but…some things are sacred, you know?

The third time someone read my play, they asked me my concerns:

My main concern is universality. Someone told me that this play was universal. And I, for lack of better words, rebuke that statement. I don’t want anything that I write (play-wise) to be universal. I want it to be isolating. The characters are in these situations because their experiences are not universal. Race plays a huge part in the family. They must be Black. If they’re not Black, the play means almost nothing. It’s kind of A Raisin in the Sun-like where there was the debate whether it was a Negro play or a play about negros that could then be picked apart and “sanitized” for white audiences.

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Unapologetically Black

It took a while for me to actually write unapologetically Black main characters. Not the kind of characters in Tyler Perry movies or even slight tokenism-ish ones like on The Cosby Show.

I think of it like this: I’m Black. We know this. I don’t wake up thinking about that fact. Do I understand the context of what I am? Yes. I didn’t fall out of a coconut tree. I’ve seen the Black struggle movies, I’ve read the books, the theory. I “understand” what it is to be Black.

But, the wonderful thing about living in 2024, fucked as it is, is freedom to be Black. And the kind of Black that doesn’t require explanation. You like anime? Yes. You like Interview with the Vampire? Supernatural, The Good Place, The Office? You like cosplaying? You like non-Black people in a romantic way? All of these can be true and you can still be Black.

I’d like to think that the average Black person is a success. We can just live! We don’t have to march through the streets on a daily basis crying out our rights. Now, this doesn’t negate and I’m not attempting to diminish the very real and present systemic inequities in America. Heavens no. If you’re one of those “Obama got rid of racism” gals, you can kindly get to stepping.

Are you still with me? Am I making sense?

Good, you’re still here.

As is canon for Black American youth, we go through a phase where we feel like we have no place in the world. I grew up going to white schools and living in white spaces. I didn’t understand my Blackness. I just thought, “oh, I’m slightly different but people like that I speak proper. I like that. I’ll keep doing that.”

Not that I tap danced. But, I was eager to please.

I remember in high school I told my mom that I didn’t like my skin color. That did something to her. I never brought it up again.

I’m better now. Much better. I’ve come to love myself the way I am, without too much of that “in spite of” bullshit.

But, I want to write characters whose problems are caused by their humanity, not their Blackness. Of course, Blackness is always a factor. But for it to be the direct one is a bit…tired and traumatic.

My characters know they are Black, they accept that fact, they don’t want to be anything but. It’s what they do with that foundation that’s actually interesting.

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So, it’s hard, for a first-time playwright, not to draw too much on personal life. The play is based on my family, the main character loosely on me (with many creative differences and liberties), and the love interest is based on a guy I had a massive crush on in college.

I’m not really afraid to be vulnerable through my writing. What else is writing for? But, I worried that people would think that what I wrote about was me writing about myself.

That’s not completely irrational, but it’s…a little invalid when it comes to writing. Unless specifically stated that something is autobiographical, non-fiction, then the sky’s the limit. And it’s a little fun for people to speculate what is “true.”

Once I got over my hangup, I went full force.

Originally, I’d wanted the play to be way more graphic.

Spoiler alert: Sam tries to get her crush, Noah, to have sex with her.

She’s absolutely desperate. What’s in the final cut is a slightly sanitized version of what I intended. But, I think, it actually works better. Sam is afraid of things being real, she speaks in dreams and hopes, hates reality. So, when she begs for Noah to be with her, she describes all the things she’d let him do to her. Instead of having her feel him up, she wants him to touch her. She wants to feel real because she is unsure of her place in the world. She needs something (one) to ground her.

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I Think, Therefore…

Grounding is an important part in the play. Reality is a huge question. What is real? What am I projecting?

In Act 2, “Red Velvet,” the family throws Sam’s older sister Winnie a party. Her boyfriend makes a surprise appearance. Chaos ensues, the father becomes a figurative monster, and the act ends with birthday confetti falling.

I struggled with the violence of this act, especially because I’m not in the business of writing Black on Black violence. So, how was I to showcase the family’s trauma and the abusive father?

Stage magic!!!

I love stage magic.

My playwriting style relies on stage magic and ambience. I try to leave some things to the imagination. Kind of like Greek plays. All the violence happens offstage and we find out about it through confrontation and conversation.

At the end of the act, Sam and her mother watch as the chaos ensues. They eat cake and fade into the background. In Act 4, Sam asks her mother if everything at the birthday party actually happened. Her mother, May, gives her a sanitized version. Then, Sam apologizes to Winnie for not stepping into the shitshow. Winnie says that everything happened.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh? You’re sorry? For what?

“For…you know. For not helping. For sitting there while he—”

“Choked me out upstairs. Punched Rick in the gut?”

“Wait. Mom said he didn’t do that.”

“Mom lies. Sometimes.”

This play is a feat of puppetry. If you read the play, you’ll see what I mean in Act 5.

Nobody is “real” outside of themselves. Like the Wax Argument. I think therefore I am. But how do we know that we are actually thinking? How do we know these thoughts are our own? What are thoughts?

Sam believes herself to be real but cannot be sure that those around her are. It’s in little things. Flickering lights, things happening offstage, sound cues. She’ll say something and someone will echo it later. Are they all connected? Who’s laughing up the staircase?

Sorry if this sounds really cryptic. I just don’t want to give away all of the little things I’ve put in. This play took me like two years. Let me enjoy myself.

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how i learned to swim

Back to the summer before I left Waco. I spent almost every day by the pool in some capacity. Most of it was spent listening to the water, the people splashing, looking at the way the sunlight hit the water. I also spent a lot of time listening to this playlist:

I thought I was so cool, getting method with it. I suppose I did fully get method with my main character because she completely drowns in the play and I almost drowned. She didn’t know how to ask for help, I refused to ask.

I was on the floaty, my friends drying in the sun. I thought I could do it, was sure it wasn’t that deep. I slowly slid off, lost my balance and fell into the water. I surfaced, went down, surfaced again. It happened extremely fast. There was no life flashing before my eyes. It was me and water and the sun. I was staring straight up.

And something stabilized me, pushed me up. I was able to make my way to the ledge of the pool and I got out. I didn’t put up a fuss, I didn’t tell my friends who could swim. I just laid on the hot pavement and took deep breaths. Thought about how unfortunate it was that my fresh braids got wet. I didn’t even have the energy to be grateful I’d survived. I was just annoyed.

Isn’t that weird? To care more about my braids than the actual drowning?

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Here’s my latest:

old men with walkers and flags

let’s take a moment to really enjoy this man. let’s sit with him for a minute. did you do it for a minute? i’ll know if you didn’t.

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me blowing up the floaty that i sat on that i fully believed would prevent me from drowning

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