Member Spotlight: Lorena Marín
*Disclaimer: This piece contains language surrounding sexual assault, physical violence, and identity based discrimination. Please be mindful when reading and we implore you to put your safety and well-being first.
Intersectionality. It’s more than just a buzz word or a start to a controversial statement. It’s human. As complex creatures, we are more than just one thing. Running brought us all together- it is the commonality that shepherded us to PPTC - but we each carry more with us, we have various layers that make us who we are.
The playbill of Lorena’s Unspoken Garden: El Jardín Que Calla.
PPTC member, Lorena Marín (she/her) meets us where running intersects with activism and art. Her recent play, Unspoken Garden: El Jardín Que Calla, led Linda Chan (she/her) and I to the Kraine Theater on a Saturday in late July. Not knowing quite what to expect, we were both blown away by the performance and continued to rave about it over a bite afterwards. Lorena’s bilingual play addresses abuse and discrimination against Latin American women. It pairs real testimonials with female monologues written by Shakespeare in the late 1500s/ early 1600s that speak to their experiences. The performance is lyrical and rife with emotion. Lorena uses dance and music, plants and laundry to illustrate each story. On a Monday evening she illustrated her own while eating Mexican Hot Chocolate ice cream from a cone (“because otherwise, what’s the point?”).
Fresh off of a sunset viewing over Prospect Heights and dressed in overalls and a yellow top, Lorena met up with me at Ample Hills Creamery. She spoke not just about her play but also her journey with running, PPTC, and activism.
Rachael (she/her): What led you to start running?/ what motivates you to run?
Lorena: I’ve always run, I mean I ran my first half marathon when I was 18. I just recently ran my first marathon for my birthday on April 25th- it was my marathon, I created it myself. After that, I stopped running. Well, it’s not that I stopped, I just think my body was fatigued, for some reason and I wasn’t able to keep running as much as I was during my training. Now, I’ll finish a long run and I’m like, “uhh, I’m going to die, I need to go to sleep the whole day.” I think I’m better now, though. We [PPTC’s Sunday Group Run] went to the Far Rockaways on the fourth of July. It was hard, they had to wait for me. The sun was too much for me. I don’t know how they run with the sun. One thing I learned from the group is that it’s okay to stop. Before I joined the group I would just run and run and for me stopping was a failure. Then I joined the group and noticed that everybody stops. We stopped and took pictures, enjoyed the view, and breathed. It’s fun.
R: What led you to running?
L: Because of the pandemic and because I’m an artist. I sing and I dance, I act, I run, and I’m curious about everything. Since I was little I knew I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to make sure I had as many possibilities as I could so I would never be unemployed. And then the pandemic hit and any possibility wasn’t a possibility anymore. I lost everything. I was fine in the end, and I was able to start teaching remotely, but the first two months there was nothing, so I started running. That was the routine that I made for myself. I would wake up and run. I was running at least a half marathon every month, a 13 mile run every month. And I was like, “whoa! This is great!” And by October I was like, “maybe this is the time for a marathon.” By then I was running for a long time already- like 6 months, and it was just me running alone. I didn’t know about many things. Like, one day I saw like two or three people running together and I thought, “I bet there’s some sort of running group or something.” So then, I Googled it, “running groups Prospect Park” and the first thing that came up was PPTC. And I was thinking, “Oh, this looks legit and look at all the things that they do.” And so I joined in January, the same day as the general meeting. They asked when I joined and I said, “ahh 3 hours ago!” and that’s how I started running with the track club.
Lorena running her marathon on her birthday this April.
R: What’s your favorite part of being a PPTC member so far?
L: My favorite part is that I can go to more places running. Of course I like running with people, but it’s the routes that really got me. There were two runs that Mark [Guralnick] led and I was like “whoa!” Then I started running alone again, but to new places. I ran to Harlem once - I was training for the marathon and I had to run 17 miles so I ran to Harlem. I was able to think about that because of the runs with PPTC. I now think, “oh I can just run and get wherever I want, literally.” I just got more and more curious. Now I’m friends with people on Strava and see what they do and I copy them. For example, I saw the Red Hook run was popular and I went there the other day and I went to certain streets I would never otherwise go to. And then I’m thinking, “I bet no one knows New York like I know New York.” I bet that’s how Mark feels.
R: Have you been able to attend any PPTC events?
L: Well, I took the dumpling course on Zoom and I did the wine tasting. I’m very grateful for that wine tasting, I want that again, because I tasted really good wine and that South African wine that we tasted is now one of my favorite wines.
I also did the Far Rockaways run and I want to go to the pub runs, but I always seem to have something at that time. Hopefully I can try that one. I’d also like to try to go to the Fireworks Run. There’s so much happening right now with the club.
I did have to stop running with the group for a bit - running with a mask and talking was challenging for me. It also was an adjustment for me to be in a group. I was competitive before I joined the group and I really did think that I was the best runner because - it was just me. So I was trying to keep up with people and even when we had the pace groups and I was like, “Oh my God this is too much for me.” And because of the mask I don’t think I was able to breathe properly and I would get little injuries. I started thinking “ahh this is too much for me.” But then I would do the regular Wednesday night runs or the Sunday runs when the masks were off and I was like, “oh yes, this is easier.” So definitely I’m going to run more and more with the group.
“They [PPTC members] take care of me, but in a way where they’re teaching me. That’s what happened for my marathon. They gave me advice every time I’d go on a run and that’s why I was able to run the marathon. ”
R: Favorite event?
L: The Rockaway Run on the fourth of July. That was really nice and the group that day was really nice. Oren [Efrati] led that run and he was great. Someone drove us back and that was such a treat. Then I got to meet Matthew Grant and he asked where my watch was because I just ran with my phone. There’s Katie Clairborne - she’s fun, she’s so cute. Everytime I go on a run with the group it’s just so welcoming and I learn a lot. Everyone’s a bit older than I am, which is really nice. They take care of me, but in a way where they’re teaching me. That’s what happened for my marathon. They gave me advice every time I’d go on a run and that’s why I was able to run the marathon. When I was trying to do some research on running a marathon, I found the internet confusing because there’s just a lot of information. I see runners like Matthew who have been running for 50 years. That’s just so remarkable.
R: One day you could be that person.
L: Hopefully. Probably. I thought I would quit after my marathon because of how I felt, but now I’m feeling better. I have to find a balance with running because I’m still dancing. I didn’t have that problem during the pandemic, but now that I’m back to classes, my muscles are tight from running. It’s been hard to run less ‘cause now I know that I’m able, I don’t want to lose that foundation from training, but I have a career.
Lorena all smiles during her marathon!
R: I also wanted to touch on your running activism, Linda mentioned to me that back in early May you posted on Discord about running with your Colombian flag in support of the protests. I was curious if activism has always been a part of your running or if it sprang up recently? How did you start to incorporate it into your running? That’s a lot, I know.
L: No, no, it’s great. I love the question. The answer is no.
R: That you didn’t always incorporate it into running?
L: Right, I just didn’t see it as a possibility. I saw it as a possibility because of the club. I saw members doing Chinatown Runners and doing the protests and I was like, “Oh, this is definitely a thing.” So when I finished my marathon, Colombia started doing a lot of protests in our country and that was really ugly and really bad and that was really sad, so I had this need to support my country and a need to support it big time. We were protesting in the consulate and the consulate is in midtown so I thought: “I’m just going to run there.” So I wore my flag and I felt so powerful. I knew people were seeing me running with my flag and I was like, “Yes, I’m here! I’m Colombian. There are Colombian people here and I’m with my country and I want everyone to know that we’re having a hard time.”
“Maybe we just get too focused on our own fight. How much do we really join other fights?”
Then I arrived to that protest and I thought that other members from the group could run with me since I saw that that’s a thing for other runs/causes, but that didn’t happen so I was kinda of bummed. But then, I asked myself, “Have I joined those other runs?” Maybe we just get too focused on our own fight. How much do we really join other fights? I didn’t run in any of the Asian hate or Black hate protests and I’m totally related to those issues, because I’m a woman of color. I could be there for them and I wasn’t and here I am asking people to come with me and I didn’t get the participation. So more than just focusing on myself and judging, it’s taught me that I have to show up for the others too, more than just want the others to show up for me. Why that happened, I don’t know.
It’s a difficult topic for my Latinx community. I feel that we’re the community in the middle and we are not heard. I really don’t understand why because there’s a lot happening with immigration and all those horrible things and kids in cages and that’s kind of the topic and it never rises as much as I’ve seen other topics have. So, I’m always asking myself, “Why aren’t we heard?” That situation was an example of “I don’t think we Latina people are heard.” I think people think that we are because we are doing the Black and Asian part, but for example there was one run that was “Run against Black and Asian Hate” and I saw that and I’m like, “I know what you’re doing and that you’re trying to look good, but I’m here and there’s also hate against us and no one’s running against that.” But that happens in every aspect and it’s something that I’m curious about. I really don’t know why it happens.
“It’s a difficult topic for my Latinx community. I feel that we’re the community in the middle and we are not heard.”
I notice it with Colombian folks, we were protesting a lot, but we barely made it to the Times, the story barely made it out. It seems like there’s more important things happening in the world. There’s too many things happening in the world which I also get. As long as I’m doing the right thing and I am trying to do it and having the conversations, I think that’s okay. 'Cause sometimes it gets too difficult and also I don’t want to be the person who’s like, “You need to fight for this and this and Me Too” and then it just becomes a fight within the fight and it’s just like, “No, we’re trying to get equality for everyone. That’s the end. It’s just interesting how it happens. But I didn’t go out and protest with the Cubans, it’s just really so hard to be active in every little thing. You have to choose your battles.
I think that’s what happens in the group. There’s a bigger Asian community in the group than there are Colombians. We don’t have a big Latinx representation, but I don’t think that’s a PPTC thing. I think that there’s just not a big Colombian or Latinx community in this part of the city. If there is, tell me where it is.
R: Kind of going along with that, but not really talking about running, but I just went to your play. You wrote it, produced it, acted in it, directed it, right?
L: Yes.
Lorena dancing in her play, Unspoken Garden.
Photo Credit: Milera Angulo
R: Did I miss anything? You danced and you sang as well- beautifully. But it was a play about domestic and sexual abuse, stalking, physical violence, and identity based discrimination that women in Latin America and Latin American culture experience. What was the inspiration behind the play?I know there was some Shakespearan influence too.
L: So the inspiration is just my own story. I just always feel really moved by how abused I have been, even though I have not suffered physical abusewhen I haven’t. It’s always minor abuses and I think that every woman goes through that. And just thinking about that more and more really makes me sick. I’m Colombian, I was really privileged. I had lots of education, I don’t come from the typical Colombian household where there’s a lot of sexism or machismo. My dad is totally the opposite, my mom is the boss. She has her own company . So that’s what I was raised with. I never felt that I would be less than because of being a woman. It wasn’t until I grew up that I started feeling that. I started feeling that with love, with being outside.
I feel like I never have a choice when it comes to love. If my boyfriend decides to break up with me, that’s first his decision and then my decision, even when I want to speak up. So there’s a part in the play where I’m saying, “Why are you leaving me again?” but when you try to ask those questions you’re considered dramatic and too emotional. But I just want information, I just want to understand. So my love stories have been like that a lot. I’m not sure if the power that my parents gave me is a thing. For some reason, I always wind up feeling powerless even when I know that I’m powerful. It’s how society thinks. I wasn’t raised with the thought of being powerless, it was just “you have all the opportunities, you have the world”, but then that’s not reality.
“I always wind up feeling powerless even when I know that I’m powerful.”
Something that really gets me mad is cat-calling. It’s everywhere, and it has gotten to the point where I cannot stand it anymore. Those situations make me think that if I as a person with tons of privilege cannot escape that, “what happens to other women?” They don’t even know that there are other options. And when you look at it, it’s bigger than you think. We will think that, between you and me, that times are not like that anymore, and that’s kind of a lie. Times are still like that for a lot of women, and that’s what made me think of the women in Latin America, the Indigenious women, and women like my aunt, like my cousin.
There was a situation with one cousin, where she just had to get married. She wanted to go out with a boyfriend and she couldn’t because she wasn’t married. They put all this pressure on her that in the end, she just got married to this person so that she could be outside and free. A year later, this man was abusive so she got a divorce. They shamed her for getting divorced which brought her a lot of suffering.
Then the Shakespeare part. That’s really beautiful and really sad. I had the opportunity to do a play Measure for Measure on Staten Island and I was Isabella. I was playing this beautiful character who is just abused. She’s a nun and she’s abused. The weekend that I was performing that was the weekend of the resolution of the Kavanaugh case and I was very grateful that I had a story to tell because that empowered my performance, but I was like, “Oh my God, I’m saying this monologue of :
“To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,
That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,
Either of condemnation or approof;
Bidding the law make court’sy to their will:
Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,
To follow as it draws”
I thought, “Oh my God, that’s literally what’s happening right now, and these words were written 600 years ago.” So that was in the back of my mind and I had all those thoughts saved.
So yeah, that was the inspiration for Unspoken Garden.
What happened is I had the opportunity to do the play months ago. Everything started coming back, auditions were up again and I really didn’t want to audition. I’m kind of against Broadway, because I don’t want to be rehearsing all of those hours just to be paid $500/ week. I can have a better living just by teaching. I don’t want to give my craft to these people, I’d rather do my own show. So, whatever, I was saying that to a friend and mentioned that I maybe wanted to do Shakespeare, because I really like Shakespeare, I have this connection for some reason. And she was like, “Oh, actually in the Kraine Theater they’re looking for plays for a Shakespeare solo show, so maybe you can give them a proposal. And it was like, “Shakespeare monologues, let’s translate female Shakespeare monologues.” And I told my friend the story and my friend said, “What if you translate them with real testimonies that have the same situation as these Shakespeare monologues?” And I said, “Let’s do it.”
Lorena performing a monologue in her play, Unspoken Garden.
Picture Credit: Milera Angulo
So I started writing, which wasn’t difficult because you just type into Google and all these stories come up. The difficult part was choosing which ones to use.
I wrote to the Kraine Theater and told them about my idea. They also were looking for me, to be honest. They’re trying to be diverse and the people who applied were white people and then here I was, “I have a bilingual show!” And they were like, “Can you just come? How many dates do you want?” And then we were game, but it was truly a one woman show in every aspect. It’s been a lot of fun. I really enjoy just doing my work and doing whatever I want. The toll is stressful, but I’m really glad that it worked. On Saturday, I felt strong. I found a production team at the last minute that allowed me to focus on the acting instead of the producing. That support was why I was able to deliver the show as you saw it.
R: Like I said, it was so beautiful and unlike any other play that I’ve seen. I think the fact that it is rooted in truth makes it so powerful. All those stories are real and they’re matched up with Shakespeare’s writing from so long ago. So, you realize, “Okay, this has been happening since the beginning of time.”
L: Yeah, we’re trying to change and it doesn’t happen for some reason. It has changed, you and I - we work and we vote, but it’s the abuse part.
R: Even the gender roles.
L: We could keep going and going with this. But I’m glad, I don’t think I realized how strong it [Unspoken Garden] was until I was in the performance. I didn’t think that was going to happen to me. When I was delivering I was like, “Whoa! This is too real!” I think my biggest worry all the time was, “Are people going to understand this? Or is this just going to be really hard to watch?” That’s why I felt the need to put the disclaimer because it’s pretty traumatizing and I don’t want to traumatize anybody and the show starts right away: “I went with my mom to a lawyer and because there was no penetration, I couldn’t prove my abuse.” Those are the first lines of the show and I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s so dark, I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t tell the story another way, I really tried to make it lighter, and the only way I found to make it lighter was putting on the videos and dancing and singing. Even in that, it was pretty heavy stuff. I’m looking forward to developing it more because I think there’s something in there. These are like the previews.
Lorena displays a range of emotions- distraught to hopeful- during her performance.
Picture Credit: Milera Angulo
R: I think it’s super important for people to watch. It brings a lot of awareness and putting the disclaimer helps because there are some people who could be triggered by these things, but you had it all covered. You’re being thoughtful.
L: Yeah, of course. I mean, it’s hard work. I’m glad that you came. I’m surprised by the fact that it’s real and that’s a beautiful thing to find. People said, “hey, we saw this, we’re coming,” and they came. I didn’t think that I was going to find that in my running group. I really feel supported in this. Normally I have to fight for this recognition, and I didn’t have to do that this time. Oren was the one who put the idea in my mind to post it in the group, even though it wasn’t running related. He said that maybe some of the group could come out and that’s what happened. So I feel seen.
“I didn’t think that I was going to find that in my running group. I really feel supported in this. Normally I have to fight for this recognition, and I didn’t have to do that this time.”
R: Is there anything else that you’d like people to know about yourself?
L: I’m just a Colombian girl in New York with a lot of passion for what I do. I put passion into everything that I do and one of those things is running and having the opportunity to show my work- the biggest love of my life which is theater- to you, to the group, to the running community feels really, really great. It feels like somehow I am achieving my goal to reach other people. I am really grateful.
PPTC is a diverse and supportive team. We want to celebrate the diversity of our club and membership. We welcome and encourage everyone to share their stories with us.
Text by: Lorena Marín (she/her)
Intro text/interview by: Rachael DePalma (she/her)
Photos by: Milera Angulo and Lorena Marín
Edited by: Linda S. Chan (she/her)
Produced by: Rachael DePalma