202: When Anxiety is a Superpower

Allison Langer  0:00  
Hi, I'm Allison Langer.

Andrea Askowitz  0:04  
 I'm Andrea askowitz, 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. 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. You know what we this is our 200 and second episode. I just want to mention that because that's 202 episodes, and we didn't mention it at 200 202

Allison Langer  0:45  
Yeah, it's sick. We bad. Today on our show, we're going to bring you a story by actually told at the live like the last episode at the Flagstaff festival of science this past September 2024 we mentioned all this last episode, but if you're just tuning in, we're just going to bore you really quickly. It's our second year collaborating with the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society. God, that's easy to say, centered, right, right ecosystem, Ecosystem Science and Society. That's why they call it ecosystem, so they don't have to do that, and they are located at Northern Arizona University. And I don't know, I freaking love Flagstaff, but even more, I love this place. We've walked around the university. The kids are awesome. The professors are amazing. Everyone's smart as hell. It's cool. So if you haven't checked out that school, you should. And we love this gig more than anything, because we get to hang out with you. Out with young people and smart people. You know what they say about the company you keep soon working to be young and smart anyway, but these people are doing really important stuff. And I think as I've gotten older, and I know this is true for you as well, I'm kind of bored by the mundane, like I really want to do something in this world that matters, right? Not even it's not about legacy. It's about like, before I check out of here, I'd like to see a little bit of change for the good or the way I would like to see change. And I know you feel the same way. So these guys are doing that, and we stand behind them, so we support everything they do. And the truth of the matter is, people believe you when they hear your story, and you're vulnerable. So if we trust one scientist at a time based on their stories, maybe we will actually believe that plastic is screwing up our world. Or maybe we cut back. We walk to work, we take a bike like whatever it is is to do our part in this world. So hopefully these stories won't and messages will also inspire you. They inspire us a lot. If you've never heard of ecos and heard us brag up, the professors that started are making this happen, basically that got in touch with us. Dr Jane marks and her husband, Dr Bruce Hungate, basically run that place over there, and probably going to be like, Why did you say that? You're going to get some trouble. But it's true, and everyone knows it. They're famous and they're doing amazing stuff at Northern Arizona University in the ecos department, and they heard our podcast and started taking our classes online. Then they came to some of our retreats, and their writing and their stories got better and better and better, and they said, Okay, you guys have to come out here and do this with our students, because in order for us to be effective scientists and actually make a change, we need to enforce that with the next generation and the people we're teaching. So that's what we do. Today's

Andrea Askowitz  3:31  
story is by Emma Lathrop. So on this episode, we're talking about learning something about ourselves that we might not have loved about ourselves before, but we now appreciate and then in that learning a little bit about science, well, that's what happened to me. I love that we'll be back with Emma's story after the break. We're back. I'm Andrea askowitz, and you're listening to writing class radio. Here's Emma Lathrop reading her story live at the Flagstaff festival of science. Her story is called when anxiety is a superpower.

Emma Lathrop  4:13  
I am sitting nervously in a helicopter hovering over the tundra outside Nome Alaska. This morning, on my commute to our field site, I enjoyed an airborne tour of rolling snow covered hills and mountains of the Seward Peninsula. But now, when I look down, all I see is fog. It is March. There is six feet of snow on the ground, but it is also hot out 45 degrees. The heat and lack of sea ice this year has caused a lot of evaporation, and there's a thick fog forming. When I flew in on a plane from Anchorage earlier that week, the fog was so thick that the plane tried to land three times before the pilot gave up and said, we'll try again tomorrow. And the helicopter our pilot's conversation with the airport crackles through my headset. O, M, E, reporting quarter mile visibility. They say, We can't land here. The pilot tells us, and he points to a house in the distance, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snow. I'm taking you there. He says, My coworker, and I don't know anyone who lives here, and we post hole through six feet of snow up to this door by FAA rules, visibility was too low to land at the airport, so for safety purposes, we've been dropped in a field near a stranger's house, and we're told to ask them for a ride back to town. Our pilot will pick us up tomorrow morning. The FAA none the wiser. My coworker and I are here on the tundra to measure snow accumulation, to understand how this critical process is changing in our warmer world. My career as an Arctic scientist might make you think that I'm adventurous or brave, but I'm actually a really anxious person. Growing up, I was always afraid of things. My cousins were risk takers, and I wanted so badly to keep up with them on roller coasters or jumps into the lake or even holding sparklers on the Fourth of July, but my anxiety always stopped me in high school. I hated when other people drove. I had a bad habit of backseat driving, and when I wasn't in control, I would start to spiral. I'd think about the red asphalt movies that they showed us in Driver's Ed. And I would imagine in college, I was annoying and naggy. I was always convinced that the cops were coming to break up a party, that someone's Tinder match would end in the kidnapping, or that while hiking, we were going to get struck by lightning, attacked by a bear, break a leg, run out of food. And instead of keeping those thoughts to myself, I made sure to tell everybody around me about my worries and try to convince them to leave the party, not go on the date, turn around the hike, to go back to safety. We're told to follow our gut, but my gut always tells me that something is going to go wrong. I tried to fight my anxiety because I knew it drove people away. In many ways, this self loathing brought me to the Alaskan tundra, where an adventurous career would surely prove that I was chill. I also care about climate change, which gives me anxiety. On the second day of the snow monitoring trip, I'm peeling off my coat because it is hot again, the air is humid. Somehow, there is a goddamn mosquito buzzing, and I smack it against my arm. I have a hard time concentrating on my work, and I don't want to repeat yesterday's landing. What if the fog gets worse? I think about how easily helicopters can lose orientation in the fog. Finally, I can't resist. I radio to our field leader, hey guys, it looks like the fog is getting pretty thick. Should we leave? Let's just try for one more plot. They say, I know they're worried we won't be able to collect all the data we need if we keep leaving the field early. In the next five minutes, visibility worsens fast. I really think we should leave now i Radio again, there's silence on the other end. A few minutes later, our pilot radios that he's already on his way by the time we lift off, the fog is pooling in the space where we were just standing as we fly towards nome, only the tops of mountains are visible. We can't land at the airport, and the valley where we landed yesterday is already covered with fog. We can't land there either. I'm used to anticipating the worst, and this is the worst, but I feel different than I usually do when I'm cycling through my anxious thoughts. I'm weirdly calm despite my fear. I am really good in emergency situations. Maybe it's because I practice them so much in my head. Our pilot scouts were a relatively flat peak with no fog, and that's where he drops us. My coworkers and I are giddy to be on safe and solid ground, and we're left with a beautiful, serene view, but soon our peak is swallowed up by fog too. I can't see five feet away from me. We're 12 miles from Nome. Let's get walking. I say. I think about how many moose I saw from the helicopter that morning, and how Alaskans I know are more afraid of moose than bears. It's getting cold and dark from the fog, and I question whether or not I brought enough food. But walking is our way to safety, despite the chaos and the unknown, I am calm and decisive, and I help get us down this mountain. Half an hour later, we reach a road, and out of nowhere, snowmobiles roar up next to us. Scientists leaving a different site need a ride back to town, they ask. We climb on the back of these snowmobiles. I wrap my arms around the driver, a complete stranger to me, and I hold on tight as we glide over the snow back to town, I think about how today, this time, we should have followed my intuition, this part of me that I had worked so hard to change, to fix about myself, to turn off today, this. It had been right, I feel a moment of gratitude for this thing that I had always felt was a flaw. My anxiety is to stop me from doing things like this. I don't want my fear to prevent me from having adventures. I don't want my anxiety to drive people away. I know from experience that things will probably turn out okay, but that doesn't mean I'll ever stop worrying about my safety and the safety of the people I care about. Back in Town, we are adrenaline fueled, and we trade stories from the day. Someone says it just came in so fast. No one even had time to notice. I say I actually did notice, and I said something, okay, tomorrow, someone says, we listen to Emma, thank you.

Andrea Askowitz  10:54  
My god, I'm smiling the whole time with

this story. I love it. I love it. I

So identify. No, we're not supposed to talk about our own self, but I do. But wait, this is what I think is so cool, like this story is mostly about her anxiety, but we are placed in this science situation, and I learned that heat causes fog. I didn't know that, you know, like it was so hot, 45 degrees,

Allison Langer  11:28  
which was funny. But here in Miami, the heat, combined with the vapor, like something like that, the humidity is also causing fog, which is kind of cool. Have you been noticing the fog around here and on the West Coast. No, okay, so that's off the subject, but yes, okay, so you learn that. Yeah, I know it's very cool,

Andrea Askowitz  11:48  
but I was just in it because I was so invested in what she was learning and telling us about herself. Yeah, I didn't know that Alaskans are more afraid of moose. I kind of learned it by just context, but they post hold six feet like they that must mean that they're like, so that they know how deep it is. And then step,

Allison Langer  12:10  
well, you know, when you're stepping, you're post holding like in snow, and you're post tolling like however many steps. So that's how I knew, but, but do you use an actual post? No, but it's an estimate. It's like waves, you know, like, if you're like, Oh, the waves are between six and eight, but you but they were using an actual post, I'm sure. Because they're scientists, they're not like some Hojo tromping through the snow. They're

Andrea Askowitz  12:31  
not Allison tromping through the snow, exactly. I was totally but we're just

Allison Langer  12:36  
trying to explain that we actually are smart enough to understand these graduate students. That's what we're

Andrea Askowitz  12:41  
trying to think. I learned a thing or two.

Allison Langer  12:43  
That's all I'm saying. We're kind of smart enough. Maybe.

Andrea Askowitz  12:46  
Yeah, there's two things like, I'm always impressed by the specifics of the details. And when she's like, and I thought that she delivered this really well too. So this was told live, so performance matters. But she was, like, she listed really quickly, like getting attacked by a bear, run out of food, and there was something else, and it like sped up, and that just so was so well done, and it showed her anxiety and what her mind was doing. And I just loved how she delivered that.

Allison Langer  13:19  
Yeah, I think by telling those details, we really, really believe her because she's willing to, like, get nitty gritty so that you were saying something else she was saying, like, about, I don't even just facts, scientific facts. We

Andrea Askowitz  13:32  
just believe her because she's believable. You know what I mean, right? Because she's not being vague, she's being very, very specific. Yeah, I'm thinking that I should become an Arctic scientist, because when she says she's an Arctic scientist, she's like, that might make you think I'm brave, but no, yeah, so it's

Allison Langer  13:53  
probably a good job for me, right? I thought it was a great setup, because we know what she's about to tell us, and then she tells us she shows so well how, like all the details, like you said, and that she's showing us by dropping us into a scene, which we are always asking for. And those are the things we remember. She actually

Andrea Askowitz  14:13  
starts with the scene. She's sitting in the helicopter, and she's enjoying this tour, and all she sees is fog. And then it happens again, where she's in the helicopter the next day, and they can't even land in that random spot, so then they end up landing.

Scary.

Allison Langer  14:34  
But isn't it funny that she chose a like a job or a career in something that still gives her anxiety, yeah,

Andrea Askowitz  14:42  
and this is one of my favorite lines. I care about climate change, which gives me anxiety. Loved it. Oh, I'm used to anticipating the worst. And this was the

worst. It was so foggy, so scary. Yeah, God. Right?

Allison Langer  15:00  
There was a lot of tension. We're not sure what's going to happen. She's setting us up for, like, real shit, and then those guys come along and pick them up and they luck out. And isn't that true? Like near misses? How many can you recount in your own life?

Andrea Askowitz  15:14  
She does have this sense that things will probably work out. She says that at the end, but yeah, in this case, it did well, what

Allison Langer  15:22  
my favorite part of the whole thing was, what she comes to right, is that she's grateful, because this flaw is actually can save lives and help her, and it's, it's there for a reason. Now, I just love that message. 100% loved it. Okay, I love Emma so much. This is the second time she's been on the on the show, that we've actually gotten to spend time with her in the class for the students at NAU and we've really gotten to know her. And she let it. Let me just say that the girl flew in the night before from Europe and actually still managed to nail it on stage. Not only that, but She fulfilled a commitment. I really admire that she could have just been like, I'm out no, she showed up, she did this, she got out there, she enjoyed it. She was so good at it. She has stories to tell. I'm just so grateful. Yeah, she's amazing. So thank you, Emma Lathrop, for sharing your story with us, with the scientists, with the world. It's the really important. Emma is also in the PhD program at NAU she studies permafrost, carbon cycles and soil. If you love her story, and I'm sure you did, you can hear Emma's last story on Episode 182 that story was awesome too, and we'll link to it in our show notes. And this would not be possible without Jane marks and Bruce Hungate and the Macalester program and community culture and the environment at Northern Arizona University and the staff at ecos writing class. Radio is hosted by

Andrea Askowitz  17:04  
me, Allison Langer and me Andrea asplitz. Audio

Allison Langer  17:08  
production is by Matt Cundill, Evan Surminsky and Aidan Glassey at the sound off media company. The music is by Justina Chandler. There's more writing class on our website, including stories we study, editing resources, video classes, writing retreats and live online classes. If you want to write with us every week, or if you're a business owner, community activist, a group that needs healing, an entrepreneur, a scientist, or you just want your team to write better, check out all the classes we offer on our website, writing class radio.com, join the community that comes together for instruction and excuse to write in the support from other writers to learn more. Check out patreon.com/writing class radio, a new episode will drop the first Wednesday of every month. There's

Andrea Askowitz  17:55  
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Tara Sands (Voiceover)  18:07  
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