Today we’d like to introduce you to Joyce Lee.

Hi Joyce , thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

A Brief Walk Through My Story
A Free Write by Joyce Lee

Something burned before I came here
Charred to it’s sobbing knees & I was born
Unto the ashes & tears turned to soot

Good thing my daddy survived the fields & know
How to turn over & show the newness under
Something burned before I entered this atmosphere

Good thing my momma taught me to breathe out
hot air & grow human lungs to super human survival
into the rebellion of a womanist & poet

& Auntie & sojourning, solo, broke world traveler
& someone who knows how to till many fertile
soils that were horribly burned before them.

I am the Founder and CEO of JL Soul Camp
She is a most fertile & precious experience.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

JLSC began when I was a little black girl, I think around 4, but we’ll come back to that level of feeling at another time.

June of 2017 I experienced the sudden death of my second husband, David. I came home and thought him sleeping until I really looked at his face about 32 seconds after joking and talking to him. I won’t go too far into my husband. JLSC is about the offering. The offering is an acknowledgment of what is witnessed without always being seen. JLSC is a processing of, for, and by the majority of the same demographic of people who supported me at my lowest. During this time my community fundraised for me, I was provided with time to examine and reexamine myself in a demanding discomfort that was there to stay a while. My community provided me with room to mourn and I decided to do that and more.

I went to Arima, Trinidad 6 months into my grief and was schooled heavily on several similarities in diaspora oppression tactics used against darker women in general, and the darkest women specifically and globally (the darkest women are worked the hardest,) and keep in mind, my gaze was as a foreigner who only recently had an option of choosing the depth unto which I labor, at nearly the cost of my bloodline. Nothing I ever own will ever be a privilege when weighed against the value of what black women have been to North America specifically and the world in general.

Because of my community I got therapy and medication and time to process in Europe. Their donations and fundraisers made my grief POSSIBLE. I began to think of black women who were losing children everyday to government sanctioned and street violence. I thought of this as I danced salsa while watching the sunrise, while mountain bike riding and hosting bilingual open mics, I thought of the debt I owed to every pleasure.

I’d beaten the hell outta two young men who tried to rob me an elderly lady in Bogota, Colombia. I didn’t even know I had that much bottled up anger until one young man slapped the older woman in the face while screaming at her in front of me. That’s when I lost my whole mind and started swinging. They barely got away with themselves let alone anything of ours, but she and I yet held each other, shivering while watching them run away with their hands press against limbs I pulled until one popped.

My heart and I settled for 3 years in Colombia. I’d spent months in jungles and a New Year’s Eve in Switzerland.
I’d learned how to handle my anxiety on my own . . .
and the Coronavirus was spreading.
It was time for me to come back home to the USA.

I came to Minneapolis on business thinking I’d stay with someone I kiiiiinda knew in college for a week, long enough for my gigs to make up for the Colombian pesos in my pocket. By the time I arrived in St. Paul the state was calling a full lockdown. I was at the immediate mercy of what turned out to be one of the most amazing partnerships I’ve seen in a place where I felt completely supported and safe for the entire Pandemic. Women kept being my rescue and medicine.

A handful of weeks into my return to North America, George Floyd was murdered. Suddenly, I felt myself surrounded by a fire that was lit way before me, but from a well-rested gaze. This time, the bullsh*t of all the bull caught me observant with the tools and bandwidth to control my conduct and regulate my emotions. I still had the taste of limonada de coco, and goat roti with homemade pepper sauce lingering in my digestion while my sisters were here, on the front lines, grieving and fighting.
I went not from grief to healing, but from nuclear loss to communal support, from a secret pain to repaying a life-saving debt.

JL Soul Camp is a community HEART project for folk to actually love, celebrate and support a multi-marginalized sect of human beings, the very sect who set the standard of what is loving, stylish celebration and community.

JLSC is a 4-day (low-income sliding scale) retreat for black women across the diaspora in skin, culture and experiences).
This experience takes place on an 80-acre wildlife preserve in Sonoma County, California annually. It is a space where black women take in beauty while constantly being reminded of their own. It is a place to be wild, be Zen, sleep, grieve, cry, commune, isolate and take and take and take and take.

Black girls are often taught to take least and last. We are stereotyped ugly and mean simply for existing, so, often when we take for ourselves we are guilted as being mean, ugly and selfish. Much of our indoctrination came from other Black women who somehow survived the worst of men, I was around 4 or so when I first felt the weight of my intersectionalities. Rest is a privilege because it requires leisure which depends on caste.

We are majority operated and sustained by women of all colors. It’s been a smooth road. We’ve always been the answer and medicine. We’re magic!

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

I am a 2 time Oakland Grand Slam Champion the only woman to win consecutive years to date. I am a storyteller on NPR’s Snap Judgment with Glynn Washington on NPR/KQED. I am a professor of Critical Reading and Composition in nearby colleges and incarceration facilities. I am a writing coach, mentor, Auntie, little and big sister and friend. I am known for my politically blunt and warm nature. I am known for someone people can send their loved ones from out of town to. I am known for standing against ignorance and cracking inappropriate jokes. I am known as an ally for children. I am known as a womanist and activist. I don’t believe much sets me apart from others.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?

I am scared of driving a car.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jlsoulcamp.com
• Instagram: @jlsoulcamp
• Facebook: JLSoulCamp

Image Credits

N/a