“Storm Damage” explores sudden loss, grief and transformative healing
By Brian Swartz
County Wide Free Press
Maiah Reilich-Godino holds a kid goat at her family’s Painted Pepper Farm in Steuben. Maiah was 18 when she was tragically killed in an accident. Her memory will be recalled in “Storm Damage: Transformative Healing — Musical Poetry Performance,” to be performed in late March and early April. (Courtesy Lisa Ann Reilich [photo credit Joanne Beal])
STEUBEN – Maiah Reilich-Godino, a warm-hearted teenager whose life was tragically cut short more than five years ago, will be remembered in “Storm Damage: Transformative Healing – Musical Poetry Performance,” to be presented by the WinterSea Theatre Experiment in five central and eastern Maine locations from March 23 to April 6.
The daughter of Jordan Godino and Lisa Ann Reilich, Maiah was born in Steuben on June 10, 2001 and grew up on Painted Pepper Farm. Her older sister is Ella Meera Reilich-Godino, a College of the Atlantic graduate living on Mount Desert Island. Maiah’s younger sister is Margaret Mae Reilich-Godino, who competed in cross country and track and field for Sumner High School.
After graduating from Brewer High School, Maiah attended Maryville College in southeastern Tennessee. The Foothills Parkway runs along the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains. “It was common for the [Maryville College] kids to drive up the parkway and look at the skyline,” Lisa said. Maiah was riding with friends when she was killed instantly in a freak accident on the parkway on March 3, 2020.
To help cope with her grief after the sudden loss of her daughter, Maiah, Lisa Ann Reilich of Steuben started writing poetry about her in September 2020. She will present that poetry in “Storm Damage: TransformativeHealing — Musical Poetry Performance.” (Courtesy Lisa Ann Reilich)
Her loss devastated her family. How Lisa dealt with her grief to achieve transformative healing led her to write “Storm Damage.”
Margaret Mae Reilich-Godino of Steuben will direct “Storm Damage: Transformative Healing — Musical Poetry Performance.” Margaret is the younger sister of Maiah Reilich-Godino. (Courtesy Lisa Ann Reilich)
With Margaret Reilich-Godino directing and Sullivan resident Gary Bushee arranging and performing the music, Lisa will perform 16 poems written after Maiah died.
Gary Bushee of Sullivan arranged the music that he will perform during”Storm Damage: Transformative Healing — Musical Poetry Performance.” (Courtesy Lisa Ann. Reilich)
“The first year of Maiah being gone was trying to stay alive and breathe,” Lisa said. She started writing poems in September 2020 ” so that I could survive. When I had all these emotions, I didn’t know what to do with them. I just found myself writing, and I felt better. It was a positive coping mechanism.”
Her first poem was titled INSTANTLY, “which is how Maiah died, and I was not there,” Lisa said. “I was writing because I was trying to breathe.”
She took a creative writing class during the Covid shutdown, “then signed up for a poetry writing class” [both] offered by the University of Southern Maine, but taken [through] the University of Maine at Machias, Lisa said.
Her poetry writing about Maiah [included in STORM DAMAGE] continued until November 2023.”My dearest friend [Mellie] died from cancer” during that period, Lisa said. “Storm Damage” will include “a couple of poems that touch upon her specifically, as well.”
Graduating from Emerson College in Boston with a theater-management degree, Lisa later obtained a theater-arts teaching certificate from UMM. Now in her third year “as a theater teacher hired to run after-school theater [club]” in RSU 24, she also works as a teaching assistant at UMM.
The poems presented in “Storm Damage” range “from just a few lines to several pages long,” with “four short prose bridges between them” in various places, Lisa said. Each poem will be paired with specific visuals shown on a screen. The visuals are “the photos taken by me at our farm’s nature sanctuary we made in memory of Maiah, Moo’s Corner,” Lisa said.
“Storm Damage” will run 90 minutes with no intermission. Admission will be free. Performances are scheduled for:
Sunday, March 23, at 3 p.m. at the Sorrento-Sullivan Recreation Center on Route 1 in Sullivan (in-person only).
Thursday, March 27, at 6 p.m. at the Jesup Memorial Library, 34 Mt. Desert Street, Bar Harbor (in-person only, must pre-register).
Sunday, March 30, at 3 p.m. at the New Surry Theatre, 18 Union Street, Blue Hill ((in-person and online, and tickets are available).
Wednesday, April 2, at 3:30 p.m. at the University of Maine at Machias Art Gallery, Machias (in-person only).
Sunday, April 6, at 3 p.m. at the B.A.R.N. (Bangor Area Recovery Network), 142 Center Street, Brewer (in-person only).
For more information about “Storm Damage” and WinterSea Theatre Experiment, log onto https:/ / paintedpepperfarm.me / wintersea-theatre-experiment/