Let the Tornado Come: A Memoir (31 page)

A
s we move deeper into the woods, I feel Claret’s back and neck start to relax. I reach forward and run my hand along his coppery mane, and he exhales a long breath. The morning light cuts through the grand old pines in glorious shafts, while the sound of our moving is a steady sound, and the shadows around us are deep. I like to pretend we’re in a secret forest, that each nook has its own story, its own particular magic.
Listen
, I want to say,
it’s all around us
. But Jane, who is beside me on her horse, is already listening. With each step, we are departing and arriving at once: there to our left is a marsh; now the reeds are thinning out, segueing into ferns; now we are entering another cool pocket of air left over from last night; now we are warm again.

On a straightaway, we pick up a trot, and everything comes faster: an outcropping of massive rocks to our right, cardinals and jays and finches darting between branches, a small stand of dead trees poking up from the silty ground, all the little bits of life in this particular second
of their trajectory. In the distance something moves, and I imagine it’s Pan, the half-man half-goat Greek god of the wild, slipping rhythmically between the trees. A musical and virile god, he was often seen dancing with the woodland nymphs. But he was also responsible for arousing sudden irrational fear in those who passed through his forests, and thus the word
panic
was born. If he emerged, I would turn to him now and say,
Thank you. I am of these woods.

And then, the forest lets us go. We break into a meadow, to which I can see no end. Jane and I both halt to let our horses adjust to the expanse, to the full gleaming sun pouring over it all. I wrap my legs around Claret a little more firmly to remind him that, while he is carrying me, I am also carrying him. I’m wearing tall black boots, like the pair I’d once seen in a shop, the kind of boots I was told would come later, after I’d been riding for a while. In response to the light pressure of my legs, Claret turns his head around to the left and watches me with his left eye. I smile. We don’t have to say anything. We are already saying everything.

“Okay,” Jane says, “gather your reins.”

As I do, Claret turns his head forward again, and Jane picks up a canter. We follow behind, easing onto the path that slices between the fields. I let my hips move with Claret, back and forth in the three beats of his swing, and as we gather distance, still I see no end.

When I was ten, I won a bike-a-thon to raise money for cystic fibrosis. I don’t remember what made me decide to do it, but I remember knocking on door after door in my neighborhood and outlying neighborhoods, asking people in my shy voice to sponsor me. That year, I rode my bike whenever I could. It was the year before I ran away for the first time, though I thought about running away on those days when I would ride so far that I’d get lost.
What if I never went home?
I’d wonder.
What if I kept on going?

On the day of the bike-a-thon, I climbed onto my blue Ross three-speed, and I rode. Over and over, through morning light and noon light and late afternoon light, I rode the same two-mile course through the
neighborhoods, getting my card stamped with each loop. At one point in the day, I noticed that a group of kids were cheating—they were taking a shortcut that knocked out a good chunk of the circuit. I couldn’t understand why they would do that, maybe because winning hadn’t even crossed my mind. I was simply riding my bike, and everything in me felt like it could keep on going. That day I rode forty-eight miles and raised more money than anyone else who’d participated. My prize was a new ten-speed, which I lost, along with most of my belongings, when my father abruptly moved us back to Maryland a year later. But what I never lost was that feeling.

And that’s the feeling I have now—on this fourteen-hundred-pound chestnut horse, this wild thing, this friend, this beautiful and mischievous and huge-hearted creature—as we move together: like he and I could keep on going.

S
ince I can remember, I’d been hearing the sound—the galloping hoofbeats, the fracas of wild forceful motion. But now the herd of horses in my mind has gone quiet. Now he has finally come.

O
nce I realized panic wasn’t a bad word, and I began to use it, friends and strangers came forward and shared their fears with me. There were a lot more panicky souls out there than I realized, and to those brave people I am grateful.

I am forever grateful to Larry Chin, my harbor, for his unwavering love and support; to Cathy Chung, for her light, and her Snoopy shirt, and for shepherding this book even when it was a shaky thought: my road always leads to you; to Chris Knutsen, who helped immeasurably in shaping and championing these pages; and to Dawn Eareckson, for her steady presence and insights through several drafts.

Thank you to Clarinda Harriss and David Bergman, my earliest professors, who urged me to keep writing, and to Stanley Plumly, David Wyatt, and especially Michael Collier, a mentor of the highest order.

To the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, thank you. There’s no mountain in the world like that one.

Thanks to David Kuhn, Becky Sweren, and the awesome team at Kuhn
Projects
for their care and expertise in taking my book in hand.
I am deeply grateful to my editor, Millicent Bennett, for her keen eye and creativity, and for making it fun; and to Ed Winstead, Erin Reback, Dana Trocker, and the rest of the talented team at Simon & Schuster for ushering this book into the world.

I am indebted to Alessandra Bastagli, Dominick Anfuso, Sharon Guskin, Meakin Armstrong, Rebecca Donner, Jennifer Miller, Youmna Chlala, Ken Chen, Paul Yoon, Vaddey Ratner, Lauren Alleyne, Miriam Altshuler, Chris Castellani, Kim Adrian, and Dr. Ysaye M. Barnwell for the varied and important ways they’ve supported me.

Thanks to Pat Ciliberto, Peggy Murphy, and Bill Vivyan, for
shining
.

Thanks to the delightful kitchen staff at Debra’s for the food and cheer that sustained me while I wrote this book.

I tip my riding helmet to Jane Hannigan, the world’s best trainer and my dear friend, for taking a chance on us: I wouldn’t have been able to tell this story without you. Thanks also to Sibley Hannigan and Jenn Raffi for the help and encouragement.

So much gratitude goes to Joanne Zaks, Kiana Logan, Karen Thompson, Daren Chentow, Heather Holland, and Norm Ephraim for their love and encouragement; and to my parents, for answering some of the difficult questions.

And I am forever grateful to C. E. Courtney, for the match.

Simon & Schuster
Reading Group Guide

Let The Tornado Come: A Memoir

Rita Zoey Chin

Introduction

When Rita Zoey Chin starts having panic attacks after moving with her husband to a bucolic Massachusetts town, she wonders:
why now?
After an abusive childhood and life as a teenage runaway, she has finally found stability and the love of a faithful and kind man. But the trauma of Rita’s past—a past that her husband, Larry, does not want to hear about—refuses to lie dormant. And at a time when it seems her life couldn’t be more peaceful, she is besieged by sudden terror: a racing pulse, shortness of breath, tunnel vision, and fear that her heart will explode. As her panic attacks increase in severity and frequency, Rita tries everything from cognitive behavioral therapy to cooking and pottery classes to an Oprah-approved healer to various psychiatrists and therapists. But it is not until she meets a horse named Claret—damaged and skittish in his own way—that she can finally heal.
Let the Tornado Come
is a triumphant story about love, about the transformative bond between a girl and her horse, about a woman who pulls herself up out of the dark and discovers that the greatest freedom lies not in running from, but turning toward, those things that frighten her the most.

Questions for Discussion

1. Do you know anyone who has, or have you yourself, experienced panic attacks? Do you have any insight on how to deal with them?

2. Rita is a poet. How did you respond to her language? What effect did her being a poet have on the memoir?

3. One New Year’s Eve, as Rita stands with Claret and imagines people sledding at night, she thinks,
“As long as we are alive, there is always the chance to begin again.”
What new beginnings have you had in life?

4. How did the structure of the book, going back and forth in time between Rita’s youth and her present day, affect your experience of her story? Could she have told her story in a different way?

5. When Rita first encounters a horse as a child with her friend Jennifer, she says,
“It registered someplace deep in me—that place where you know things before you know them.”
Did anything ever register so deeply with you? What is it about horses that people connect with in a primal and emotional way?

6. When Rita tells her friend Annie about her panic attacks Annie says,
“Get two prescriptions—one for Prozac and one for Xanax—and pull yourself together.”
How might Rita’s journey have been different had she chosen to use medication?

7. Rita describes the challenges of trying to learn to ride a horse when she’s in her thirties, while most people learn to ride as children. Have you ever learned something new at an unconventional age?

8. What did you think of Rita’s mission to find a mother and the women she encountered in her quest?

9.  Rita speaks a number of times of having hope, even during terrible situations. Do you think having hope is something inborn? How do you maintain strength and hope in the face of challenges?

10. When first learning to canter, Rita says,
“My relationship with panic . . . enabled me to fully submerge myself in the freedom and joy of riding: it was only by holding on so tightly that I could begin learning how to let go.”
Discuss this seeming contradiction. Have you experienced anything like this?

11. Rita and Larry have a tacit agreement not to discuss her time as a runaway—a major part of her life and identity. Do you have anything you do not discuss with a spouse, friend, partner, or family member? Would you like to? How could you broach the topic?

12. When Rita realizes she is not weakhearted, she says,
“Sometimes when we change what we believe, we change who we are.”
What is an example of this from your own life?

13. Rita eventually comes to the conclusion that she must let her mother and father go. Have you ever had to let a person or relationship go even if you wished you could change it for the better?

14. Rita returns to Montrose detention center twenty years after she was there as a runaway. Have you ever returned to a place from your childhood to find it drastically changed?

15. Have you ever had a relationship with an animal like Rita had with Claret: healing, strength-giving, and reciprocal?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. Go as a group to a pottery class as Rita did.

2. Cook
the meal Rita made with Helen
: roasted cashews with rosemary, banana cream pie, halibut, baby squash, jasmine coconut rice, banana cream pie. See links to recipes below.

Roasted cashews with rosemary:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/rosemary-roasted-cashews-recipe.html

Mediterranean halibut:

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/mediterranean-style-halibut

Sauteed baby squash:

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/sauted-baby-squash-with-basil-feta-10000001724868/

Jasmine coconut rice:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/coconut-rice-recipe1.html

Banana cream pie:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Banana-Cream-Pie-107728

3. Write a one-page episode that you might include in a memoir.

4. More information on panic and anxiety disorders:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/panic-disorder/index.shtml

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/panic-attacks/basics/definition/con-20020825

5. More information on runaway children:

http://www.missingkids.com/Runaway

A Conversation with Rita Zoey Chin

How was your experience of writing a memoir different from writing poetry or other forms of writing you’d done in the past?

Writing a memoir was actually very similar to writing poetry or fiction, in the ways I think about language, imagery, narrative drive, and truth. What I mean by truth is different from accuracy—though accuracy is, of course, very important. But what I mean is that I’m always trying to get to the truest essence of any given moment or idea, whether it exists in the real world or in the world of my imagination. And sometimes that truth isn’t what it first appears to be.

There were also some significant differences between writing a memoir and the other forms of writing I’ve done. I found it to be an interesting challenge at times, as I mined my own history in service of telling these particular stories, to choose which moments to keep in the book and which to delete. To do this, I had to maintain enough of an objective distance to see these moments from other angles, to locate their deepest truths and to weigh them not in terms of their importance to my life, but instead to the larger story I wanted to tell.

For example, I tried many things in my quest to stop panicking, only some of which appear in this book. If I had put them all in, I think I would have fatigued the reader, so I chose the ones that felt most relevant to my larger journey through panic. Similarly, as to to the scenes from my days as a runaway/ward of the court, there are many that don’t appear in this book. Again, I wanted to be true to the larger narrative arc of those years, while also being sensitive to the reader’s experience—while I will always look upon my running away as one of the things that ultimately saved my life, those years were also quite brutal, and I wanted to protect the reader from that brutality as much as possible. In that way, writing memoir is, again, no different from writing in any other genre for me, in that there is always a responsibility to the reader.

How are your panic attacks now? What advice would you give to someone searching for the right way to treat their own panic attacks?

During my months of panic, I spent a lot of time on my front steps. It was a comfort, somehow, residing on the cusp of in and out, where I had more than one option to flee that nameless threat panic is always trying to warn us about. One day, in between panic attacks, as I sat listening to the cars passing by on the road, I wondered how many other people out there felt afraid, and if I had ever unknowingly driven past someone panicking on their front step. And I wondered if so, what would I have done if I’d known? Quickly, I knew the answer: I would have pulled over. I would have reached out my hand. I would have said, as a friend might say, “You are stronger than you know.” Of course, it would take me a while to learn to be that friend to myself, but it was interesting to me how certain I was of the answer when I imagined the question for someone else. So that would be the first thing I would say to someone wanting to treat their own panic attacks: you are stronger than you know, and you are not alone.

I learned so much from my panic attacks that I came to see them, ultimately, as an opportunity instead of a curse (though for a while they felt very much like a curse). So much in life is about context, and as I began approaching panic and anxiety with curiosity (why, now, am I panicking, and what can I learn from this?)—I found answers I never expected. But I had to be patient. And I had to be willing to be uncomfortable (as opposed to going for a quicker fix, such as medication) while I figured things out. Though this approach wasn’t always easy and was, at times, downright demoralizing, it ultimately formed part of the bridge that moved me through my fears.

As I asked these questions of my panic, some of the answers pointed to childhood, and some of the answers pointed to what was happening in my present life: a recent move that left me isolated, a marriage in which I felt I had to keep certain parts of myself hidden, and, ironically, the fact that I had, in this new and beautiful place I was now living, finally let my guard down. I had thought that my past had no hold over me anymore, that I had risen from it clean as a lotus reaching for the sun, but my panic attacks suggested otherwise and eventually came to serve as an invitation to go back and not only process some of the trauma I’d endured as a child but also to draw upon my younger self—a searcher who was loyal to hope, who was tenacious and resilient and open-hearted when it came to finding happiness in this world—for strength. And as I went about trying to tend to all the things that seemed to need attention in both my past and my present life—whether through clay classes or cooking classes, through cognitive behavioral therapy or talk therapy or EMDR therapy, through energy rebalancing or acupuncture or massages with healing stones, through calling upon strangers or calling upon friends, through reading writers I admired and attempting to write a line or two in my own notebook, through ultimately pulling into a roadside barn that would open my world to horses—I found that the answers didn’t lie solely in any one thing, but more in the search itself—that motion that declares,
I’m on a mission here!
So to anyone struggling with panic, I’d also say this: don’t be discouraged if something you try doesn’t work. Instead, keep going. Ask yourself what you need, then trust yourself with the answers; trust that there is something here for you to learn on this road and that when you come through to the other side—and you
will
come through to the other side—you’ll be stronger and wiser for it.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I would say this to any panicky soul who’s willing to listen: have compassion for yourself. We panicky types are some of the most sensitive, empathic people out there, and your fear is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just a part of you that’s asking to be made safe, and it’s asking you to do it. And you can.

As for me, I’m grateful to be mostly free of panic attacks, with the exception of one trigger: driving on certain highways still makes my heart pound. I’ve come to accept that this is a residue of my panic and that some highways, namely those really enormous ones, or the ones that lack a shoulder, might always be a challenge for me. But I’m okay with that. It’s a small price to pay for the peace and joy I feel most other times. And when I do have to take one of those highways, I resort to my tried-and-true method of singing along with the music very loudly (and usually, quite embarrassingly, off-key), until I have no choice but to laugh at myself.

How did you decide how to structure the book—going back and forth between scenes from your youth and your present day?

Maybe it’s just because I love to canter on my horse, but I’ve often thought the structure of this book moves similarly to the canter’s three-beat gait in its swing-like rhythm, this rocking back and forth. But horse gaits aside, the structure of this book feels, to me, truest to life. Sometimes I’m riding down the road when a song comes on and then I’m on a different road, twenty years earlier. I think that happens to most people—those memories that spring to life again and again—which is why Faulkner’s quote about the past not being dead, or “even past,” is so popular. Some of the major themes in
Let the Tornado Come
deal with the role the past plays in the present, and one place this theme is visited is in my relationship with Larry and my conflict between having this story that keeps sprouting up—this story that lives in me and is, in many ways, fundamental to who I am—and a marriage that wants to erase this story. So it seemed right, to let my earlier story tell itself throughout the book, to let it be intertwined with the narrative of my present life—to finally open the door to that runaway girl and let her have a voice.

What is it about horses that people connect with in a primal and emotional way and find to be healing?

I think that’s an interesting question, in part because one of the things I connect to with horses is a kind of mysteriousness, that which cannot be easily explained, a feeling that travels through the corridors of the spirit, like light. (Notice how I still try to explain it anyway! Ha!) But truly, those moments when I am alone with my horse, looking up into his eyes, are the moments when there is no past, no future; there is only now. And I think that’s a very healing thing, to be liberated, in our overstimulated and overstressed lives, from everything but the present moment—even if just briefly.

Of course, horses are often symbols of freedom, and who doesn’t have that innate desire to be free? To watch a horse galloping across an expanse of land, its mane and tail flying, is arguably one of the most arrestingly beautiful, graceful, and powerful things we can behold, and I think it serves as reminder of what we can all be if we let ourselves.

But there are other things that resonate between horses and humans. As prey animals, horses have a very active flight response, which is why you often hear people talking about a horse “spooking.” Humans are wired to have this same response, albeit less frequently—unless, of course, you’re having panic attacks. This was a bond I never expected to have with horses, and helping Claret through his fear helped me through my own. Our communication formed a transformative feedback loop: every time I patted Claret’s neck and calmed him through a scary situation, I was also calming a part of myself; every time I was strong for him, that strength took root inside me, as did my empathy for him, and my love.

It’s always amazing to me that horses let us get on their backs at all. Such generous animals, horses carry us, and that feeling alone is incredibly healing.

You write of moments of hope during terrible circumstances. How did you manage to maintain hope during such challenging times? Do you think that having hope is something inborn?

It must be inborn, because it’s just something I’ve always naturally done, even in what seemed like the most hopeless circumstances. Finding hope—little glimmers in even the darkest days—has been an incredible blessing throughout my life, and has no doubt saved me countless times. But it’s difficult for me to talk about hope without also talking about gratitude because they strike me as kin to each other. When I was nine and accidentally ran through a plate-glass door, I learned a life-changing lesson about gratitude: earlier that day I’d been grumpily lamenting a painful paper cut on my finger, and that evening, as I lay on a hospital gurney with four deep lacerations in my body, I remember looking at my finger and thinking,
I wish all I had was this paper cut
. That was a huge moment for me because I saw how things could always be worse. “You’re lucky the glass didn’t cut your eyes,” they told me, “or your throat,” and just as I thought the paper cut was bad, only to see that it was nothing compared to the injuries I sustained from the glass, I also knew that those injuries were nothing compared to those I could have sustained. So during even the most terrible times, I found a way to be grateful for what I still had left, and from that place of gratitude, I was able to rally enough strength to keep hoping for something better. It seemed that as long as I could wake to a new day, anything was possible. So I lived for possibility, and in that way, hope became the engine that propelled me forward.

At one point you went on a quest for a new mother, seeking out a number of women you admired, but eventually came to the realization that you didn’t need a mother. What was that revelation like? How did it feel to come to that realization?

This revelation was one of the most liberating revelations of my life. I had spent so many years coveting mothers—my friends’ mothers, TV mothers, catalogue mothers, women who played Spades with me or snuck me sips of their sodas when nobody was looking during those long days I was institutionalized, and total strangers—and I coveted them gluttonously. I would ask my friends all manner of detailed questions about their mothers and about how it felt to have that singular kind of love, but I think it’s hard to answer questions about things you’ve always known, such as what it’s like to breathe or to have sight, for instance. So I paraded my fantasy mom around in my imagination, playing out all the ways my life would have been better for having her. And then what I always came back to was my actual life, the one in which I was, for all intents and purposes, motherless. So I spent a lot of energy—and hope, which in this case didn’t necessarily serve me very well—on an exercise of futility. I don’t know why I thought some woman in the produce aisle would adopt me, but there I was, searching for her. This search was put into high gear, of course, during the months I was having panic attacks, when I often felt like a helpless child. How interesting it was, then, to find that the therapist I’d most hoped would be like a mother was the one who, in treating me as if I were helpless, made me realize that my own self-perceived helplessness was merely an illusion, and I had no use for it anymore. I was holding onto a child’s wish in my wish for a mother, and it was time to let it go. Whatever I’d wanted from a mother, I would do my best to give to myself. Realizing this was a huge relief, and it was also another empowering step on my journey through panic.

You say that your relationship with panic enabled you to fully submerge yourself in the freedom and joy of riding, that only by holding on so tightly you could begin to learn to let go. Can you talk more about this seeming contradiction?

At the heart of panic is the desire to stay safe, from everything. But the problem is that no true guarantee of safety exists in life. There is, however, a guarantee that we will suffer and we will die. Once I understood this fully—once I accepted that even if I never left my couch again, I still wouldn’t be safe, I would still age, my body would still deteriorate as bodies do—I knew that letting fear stop me from living my life was already a kind of death. So I began to release my white-knuckled grip on everything just enough to start making each minute count as much as possible. And that brings me back to what I was talking about earlier: that feeling with horses of being fully engaged in the Now. I think many people go through life quietly afraid of things, avoiding things that maybe secretly they desire, passions that will never see the light of day, and sometimes this avoidance is so quiet, so beneath the radar, that people never have to grapple with it. But because of the extreme nature of panic, I was forced to look at everything I was afraid of, and in doing so—in realizing that the fear itself was more damaging than any other thing—I was able to slowly let those fears go. I think this idea is similar to the idea of progressive muscle relaxation, which funnily enough, didn’t work for me when I was panicking. But the idea is that by holding on as tightly as you can, there comes a point where there is no choice but to let go.