Artists’ retreat at Lazy L widens the circle of storytelling

Seven women emerged from the Lazy L at Willow Creek Bed & Breakfast on Memorial Day refreshed, rejuvenated and invigorated with creative zeal, thanks to an immersive retreat supported in part by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

The mission of the retreat, called Naming the Nameless: A Writing Retreat for Marginalized Voices, was to lay a foundation for widening circles of storytelling and cultural healing in the community.

Participants from underrepresented populations and cultural groups gathered for four days of brainstorming, writing, restorative physical activities, performance and community building. The location, in a secluded wooded area overlooking wetlands, provided a quiet, restful, safe setting for frank interaction and exchanges, as well as spontaneous creativity and performance.

Workshop leaders JoAnn Balingit and Traci Currie said the retreat aimed to offer a safe home away from home to honor truths of work, family, dream life, home life, sexuality, spirituality and social life.

Balingit is a Filipino-American poet and nonfiction writer who served as Delaware’s 16th poet laureate, from 2008 to 2015.

A Caribbean-American poet and artist, Currie focuses on spoken-word performance.

Participants were Asian Americans or African Americans ranging in age from 24 to 68 years. They included teachers, a bookstore owner and visual artist, a psychotherapist and a retired journalist. All were seeking kindred spirits to help them voice life experiences that are often foreign, misunderstood, uninteresting or incomprehensible to majority-white, heterosexual Christians.

All were trying to name the nameless – the unarticulated truths and unfathomable lies of their lives which could be soul-crushing until offloaded from their shoulders and heard or seen by someone else. All were reckoning with the wrong assumptions, careless tagging, and unjust – even cruel – treatment of people of color. All were figuring out ways to be heard and acknowledged when they proclaim: “I am human, too, just like you, worthy of dignity and respect.”

Such soul-searching conversations can be frightening, even dangerous and life-threatening. But at the Lazy L at Willow Creek, everyone felt not only safe and in a good place, but also well cared for by a wonderful innkeeping staff who assembled sumptuous breakfasts every morning.

Participants also communed with nature amid the whistling leaves of ancestral trees, the clatter of woodpeckers drilling, the quiet murmur of the creek and the playful forays of small brown rabbits onto the lawn. The women unabashedly laughed, spoke, sang and shouted. Some tears fell. No one worried. All were sisters trying to voice and tell their stories. All left with renewed purpose to finish current projects, initiate new ones, and nurture the creative fellowship that had blossomed over the holiday weekend.

Co-organizers Balingit and Currie and all five participants – Ellen Cappard, Kyna Smith and Njideka Wiggins of Wilmington; Mahi Palanisami of Newark; and Maureen Rouhi of Frankford – thank the Delaware Division of the Arts for generously supporting this affirming activity.

The division promotes Delaware arts events on DelawareScene.com.