205: How Are Jumping Rope and Tornadoes Related? A Braided Essay

Andrea Askowitz  0:00  
Hi, I'm Andrea askowitz, 

Allison Langer  0:05  
and I'm Allison Langer, and this is writing class radio. You'll hear true personal stories and learn how to write your own stories together, we produce this podcast, which is equal parts heart and art. By heart we mean the truth in a story, and by art we mean the craft of writing, no matter what's going on in our lives, writing class is where we tell the truth. It's where we work out our shit. There's no place in the world like writing class, and we want to bring you in

Andrea Askowitz  0:34  
today. We bring you a story told live on stage at the flag staff festival of science in September 2024 the story is by me. So three years ago, we were hired by Dr Jane marks and Dr Bruce Hungate, two extremely famous ecologists from ecos at the Northern Arizona University. So they heard our podcast, and they started taking our classes, which led them to be like, Wait, our students should take these classes. And so since then, we've been doing online classes, in person classes we we schlep out there twice a year to train No, but I love it. I love it. Love it to train scientists how to personalize their stories to reach a broader audience. The story that you're going to hear today was told, Well, all of them were told, in collaboration with the center of ecosystem science and society, that's what ecos is. Gotta say that the scientists are just brilliant and awesome and really great to work with. And then also what's great is that I got to tell a story, and my story actually has science in it. The story is a braided essay, and if you're like, what is that? Don't worry. We'll talk about that after you hear my performance, we need

Allison Langer  2:03  
to take a break to actually support our podcast, so we will be back with Andrea story after the break, we're back. I'm Allison Langer, and this is writing class radio up now is Andrea askowitz reading her story called it's a numbers game.

Andrea Askowitz  2:27  
I pull out my jump rope and start slow with a double jump just high enough for the rope to pass under my feet. Swing, jump, jump one. Swing, jump, jump two. At 100 I raise my left pinky and start at one again. At 200 I lift my left finger, ring finger. It's easy to lose count before dawn. My daughter Natasha's College, Tallahassee Community College. TCC sent out three text messages. One. TCC alert, severe thunderstorm warning two, tornado warning three. TCC alert, TCC alert, TCC alert. I called Natasha was up. She got the three alerts, which came through her cell phone, same as mine, with an excruciating sound. She heard the wind. She thinks she heard trees fall. She said she wasn't afraid, but I am. Today is May 10. Hurricane season starts June 1. We're not even in hurricane season yet, and this is the second time Tallahassee has been under a tornado warning since my daughter got there five months ago. I count 300 and stick out my birdie finger. Fuck you, global warming. The first 400 are always the hardest, stiff muscles dread this workout will last forever. I started jumping rope at age six, probably on the playground in first grade, all the kids jumped singing down in the valley where the green grass grows, there sat Andrea sweet as a rose along came boy's name and and kissed her on the cheek. How many kisses did she receive? 123, now at 55 jumping rope isn't just a game. Jumping is Xanax. Natasha lives in a townhouse complex with hundreds 1000s of other students. The buildings are adorable, but anyone can see they were made by the first little pig, or maybe the second, when Hurricane Andrew blew through South Florida in 1992 at a Category Five. My brother and sister in law lived in a similar townhouse. They hid all night in a windowless bathroom with their dog after the storm, huffed and puffed. The bathroom was the only room standing when Andrew blew through, my dad acted like it was a good time to make moonshine and went to sleep. My mom and I hunkered down in my brother's room. When the electricity went out, we had Brian Norcross on the transistor radio. He said, Do not go outside. I wasn't going anywhere except the bathroom. Three Three times. That's what my body did when I got scared. We heard a crash the window in the next room. My childhood bedroom must have shattered. Water seeped in under the wall. Brian Norcross said, Stay under your mattress. My mom and I pulled my brother's mattress off the bed, but lay on top of it. I think we both knew that getting under a mattress meant total doom. The air was hot, but more than that, thick. Hurricane winds create pressure. When I lifted an arm or stood to go to the bathroom, I felt the air heavy like I was moving through water. Everything I knew about the sky, breathing life on Earth was different. At 400 I lift, I lift my left pointer and Quicken my pace. I'm doing double jumps, only faster. At 500 I stopped to stretch. I bend my left knee and hold my heel to my butt with my left hand. I count to 20, I start moving again. I need to get winded. I try not to think about anything except counting. But my mind has a mind of its own. I grew up in Miami and went through the hurricane routine a couple of times. We filled the tub and taped up our windows, but in my 23 years, Andrew was the first to hit hard every spring since I felt the heat of summer approaching and with it a rise in anxiety. Last year, 2023 Miami's average temperature was 79.9 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the National Weather Service, that's 2.5 degrees above the 30 year normal, and the warmest year on record. In winter, when Miami is at its best, I open the windows and enjoy the cool air. I didn't count, but last winter and again, this winter, my kids yelled at me more and more to close the windows and turn on the air conditioning. I watched the TV series five days at Memorial Hospital about Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans. Levees broke. Memorial Hospital was flooded. 45 people died. I went to marine West, a boat store on us one I've driven past a million times without ever seeing it. I told the woman at the register I wanted an R, h, i, b, which stands for rigid hold inflatable boat. I didn't even know what a hole was until I'd gotten into it on Google, I typed in rescue boat, blow up boat, best boat in case of flooding, I was afraid to tell the woman at Marine West why I wanted a boat. I didn't want her to think I was a survivalist. I didn't want her to think I was crazy. But worse was her thinking I wasn't crazy. What if she thought getting a boat in case of flening, was a good idea? At 600 I raised my right thumb and step at my pace again, one swing, one jump. I dash off 100 in like a minute. 1000 jumps takes about 15 minutes, if I stay focused, swing jump, swing jump. I'm no rocky but I go one foot, swing jump, then the other foot back and forth, doing my dance. I criss cross and double under, swinging twice on one jump. But count them as one. I'm moving now, sweating, heart beating in May, a warning from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration the number of named storms is the most it has ever forecast, 17 to 25 named storms, including eight to 13 hurricanes. Numbers are rising. I'm at 800 now 900 I'm back to a fast paced double jump. I'm tired, but I can't stop now. I need this more than ever. At 1000 I start again at one

Allison Langer  9:57  
I've heard this story. I was there. When you told it. This narrator, it's so funny, because every single time I'm like, what a crazy bat like you, you really tell the story in a way that like this narrator, I don't think she realizes she's crazy. Like,

Andrea Askowitz  10:14  
oh yeah. No, I do. You do?

Allison Langer  10:17  
Yeah, I hear it, but it's so interesting, because I feel like the narrator does such a good job of bringing us into her brain, the world, with the jumping and the repetition and the need to focus and all that stuff, I feel like I'm at the boat store, like the whole thing. I really feel like it's just the right number of words, it's just the right amount of sentiment. I don't know it's such a good story. Can

Andrea Askowitz  10:44  
I say that I don't know that it's gonna properly translate to the podcast, because the delivery of the story on stage, I mean, my my way of delivering is really slow. So there were a few moments where I don't know what was happening, but I think I was like, looking, you know, like making eye contact with one or two people who who reacted. Were you reading it? Or were you performing? I read mine. Okay, yeah, it was a reading. But did you notice that? Like, there were a few times, there were a few spaces where I was like, oh, what? Yeah. So sorry about that listeners, or I

Allison Langer  11:21  
wrote that down, I was like, Should we ask Matt to cut, move like, you know, condense, or should we fill it with music? Or should we discuss why there's gaps? And I think the important thing is, is that when you are telling a story on stage, you are slowing down because they're listening to it. They're watching you. They can be distracted, so you allow them time, but also the pauses are also for audience participation. Well, that's what

Andrea Askowitz  11:45  
I like. I like audience participation. The audio doesn't really capture the participation, so it's a little awkward, but I brought, I swear people were reacting. That's why I was that's why I think that's why I was pausing. Yeah, you're good at pauses, like, Can you wait and you in the real show. I felt like I did really well, like I really connected, but so now I'm like, Oh, sounds goofy, but All right,

Allison Langer  12:09  
do you want to talk about a little bit about what it was like to write it and to experience it? We said that we

Andrea Askowitz  12:15  
were going to talk about what is a braided essay. And I actually, I just want to say that I don't really like gimmicks, really or special. I would never set out to write a haiku or whatever, because it just, I don't like that kind of form. I mean, I say that, but then maybe I do, but because what happened here is I was in real time when I first started jumping rope. It was right after I got that TCC alert, and I was like, fucking shit, I'm so nervous, and I just started jumping rope, because that's what I do sometimes, like hardcore exercise to relax me. So it really naturally went together, the jumping rope and my fear of like hurricanes, or in that case, it was a tornado blowing through my daughter's hometown at the time. But anyway, so in the writing of it, those were connected, but I just started writing about the jumping rope aspect of it, like, I just, like, wrote exactly what happened while I was jumping rope. And that's how I do jumping rope, like, with one finger and then two fingers, and then that, you know, so that I can keep count, but I can't remember now, if I brought in the hurricane parts and the did I on my own? I think I did. I think that I was like, Wait, I see a connection here between what's happening in the world in terms of, like, global warming and numbers rising. So I just started writing that part, and then I went back and forth. So it was like I was sometimes jumping, and then I would leave the jumping moment and then go to, like my memory of hurricanes, and then I would go back to jumping, and then I would go back to what's happening in the atmosphere, jumping store with the boat. It was actually, this is what happened, and then I shared it with the group, because it's all a it's all a process. We edit, edit, edit each other, and it was the group of scientists, yeah, the group of scientists, you probably did a hardcore edit before we brought it, before I brought it, or maybe after, I don't know, at some point, because you always edit my stuff so it doesn't sound like shit. And then I remember bringing it to Nicole Walker, who is a professor of English, isn't she on staff at ecos? She's like the writer in residence, or something like that. Like she's part of the science team, and she's part of our team, so she works with us. We all work together. And she noticed that there was, like this rising of jumps numbers, and then rising of all the other numbers I was talking about. And I really worked the numbers part, but she's the one who thought of the name a numbers game, and I loved the type. At all, because jumping is kind of a game, but also it's a numbers game. Like, are we going to make it or not?

Allison Langer  15:06  
When? When somebody's writing a braided essay, do you recommend they write two different stories, like the two different and then braid them together? Or do you did you do it, like, while you were writing or in the editing? Like, how? What was the process? I know you just talked a little bit about that, but I was wondering if you just do to it. So

Andrea Askowitz  15:23  
there's a really cool exercise that I learned from Nicole Walker, and I think it's from an essay that I that she wrote in lit hub. If I am right, then I'll link it in in our show notes. But what she does, she gives a prompt, like the prompt will be something you're obsessed with, right? And then you write, write, write, and then she'll say something that you love. And then, like, you write, write, write. So, so if I'm obsessed with global warming, and then something I love, I love coffee, they don't seem related, but when you start writing them back to back, this is just one way to do a rated essay, you'll start to see that those two themes are somehow linked in your brain. We see this all the time when people write to prompts. One of our students, Meg Poland, said this once, and I thought it was so smart, where she was like, we were like, oh, maybe you have two separate stories there, and this student said, maybe not, like, maybe your brain is putting two seemingly dissociated topics together for a reason. I think that's what happened for me. I think it just happened organically, like I started writing about the jump roping, and then, because I was also writing about the tornado that was thrashing Tallahassee. I started tornado, or it was a tornado. It was tornado. It was because we were in the middle of a hurricane, right? That was later. That was another time. That was when we were saying, oh my right,

Allison Langer  16:53  
yeah, in Flagstaff, it was hitting Tallahassee that they were they were thinking it was going straight. And we were like, on stage, and our two kids are there, and both of us are like, Well,

Andrea Askowitz  17:03  
they both got out, but you're right. Okay. So this was in May, when the tornado was hitting Tallahassee, and I started writing. So I started writing about jumping rope and tornadoes and hurricanes and everything. And then when we were there in September, an actual hurricane just missed Tallahassee and our kids had just gotten out fucking scary, I guess, like I heard Apple dating now, yeah, I want to say that I don't feel as nervous right now, because now it's almost a year later. It's we're still in April, so we haven't hit the season yet, but winter like I relax, but when hurricane season starts coming around again, I'm going to be glad we have that boat. I'm not living hysteria for the full year. If you are worried about me, I

Allison Langer  17:51  
always wonder. Like, so you guys make it out in your boat and then everybody else dies. So like, are you just drifting down the river by yourselves while everybody else is dead? Like,

Andrea Askowitz  18:00  
how do you see that? I don't think everyone's gonna die. I mean, that's bad. I don't want to be the last one living. I'd rather die if that were the case. But basically, I feel like the boat is there in case. I don't know, you don't live that far. Like, oh, you come get me in your boat. Row, row over, yeah. Like, I would row over with, like, a with, like, a jug of water. Oh, that's really sweet, yeah, like, just so that we can get around if we're totally flooded out. And if you watched five days at Memorial, you will see that it is possible we are so close to the ocean, it is totally possible that we could be under five feet of water for days. And then how do you get someplace? You need a boat. I only watch

Allison Langer  18:44  
four days at Memorial. It was too slow. By the fifth day, I got it. I kind of got what they really I was like, come on, it's still on my Netflix, or whatever it is. I it's too slow. These shows need to pick up the pace. They didn't need five episodes.

Andrea Askowitz  18:57  
They probably didn't, but, and, but so you saw the flooding, though, you know what I'm talking Yeah, starts coming in. You know how bad it gets? Yeah, it was. I mean, that was a levee broke, like they they survived the hurricane, and then the levee broke, and then it was, and it's a true story, and so I don't know. The other day it was biking by the Coconut Grove, or maybe it's the Coral Gables fire station, one of the fire stations, and they were like, exercising, and the doors were open. They have one boat. I'm like, yo, you need more than one boat. How'd they take that? They didn't hear me. I was biking by, but I was like, fuck, one boat, please. That's not enough. I wonder how they figure out who gets in the boat. They're gonna go rescue people in that boat. I don't know, one boat's not enough. But anyway, so there, that's my story.

Allison Langer  19:43  
Well, it's awesome. I think everybody should go try doing a braided essay. And we'll put the link to Nicole Walker's brilliant instructions, and follow the prompt, something you love, something you're obsessed with, and this go back and forth, back to the thing you love, back to the thing you're obsessed with. Awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you guys for listening and thank you Andrea for sharing your boat story with us, your numbers game boat story. Writing class radio is hosted by me, Allison Langer and me Andrea askowitz. Audio production by Matt Kendall, Evan serminsky and Aiden glassy at the sound off media company. And theme music is by Justina Chandler. There's more writing class on our website, including stories. We study, editing resources, video classes, writing retreats, live online classes. You guys should join us every week. We have a couple classes. So tune in, check us out at writing class, radio.com, especially if you're like a business owner, scientist, community activist, anybody who needs healing, or an entrepreneur who wants to have your team write better. We have tons of resources to check them out, and they can hire us. Yeah, they can also join the community that comes together to write, we share and we offer support to each other, and it's really a great excuse to write so come and it's better than therapy. Yeah, big time a new episode will drop the first Wednesday of every month.

Andrea Askowitz  21:17  
There's no better way to understand ourselves and each other than by writing and sharing our stories, everyone has a story. What's your yours?

Tara Sands 21:29  
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