Words from Cara - Blog | Stories by Cara Wilson-Granat

About TIME

“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.”
James Taylor

Time. It’s such an ephemeral thing, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t hold it or frame it and place it on the wall except in photographs indicating the way we looked then as opposed to now. Try and explain it to a child. I mean, yes, a clock or watch tell us the time but really what IS time? Minutes. Seconds. What are they? What do they look like? How do we even know they really exist? What is the purpose of time other than to let us know we’re either late or early to this thing called Life.

I suppose if I had Einstein’s genius I could come up with a wise retort, but my brain is seriously lacking in the brilliance department. Not a wunderkind, I’m simply left with a mind filled with wonder. And that’s what brings me to this moment of contemplation. Possibly it’s because of this season of nostalgia. Autumn always does this to me. I love it so. The multi-colored leaves falling to the ground prodded by wafts of sun-tinged breezes. The fire-place smells and everything changing, leaving the summer days behind and everyone beginning to snuggle down and wrap into the coming cold. But I tend to fall into that state of longing. For what? I’m not sure. But I long. And I remember. And I feel both energized and resigned. Seeking out that ancient, inner cave to retreat into and redefine my place here, there, everywhere.

Maybe it’s all that as well as me facing an end-of-the-year birthday signaling the fact that chronologically at least my hour-glass is piling up at a steady downward pace. I can no longer say, “Someday I will, blah-blah-blah…” I mean none of us should say that. The moment is NOW, like the author/master teacher Eckhart Tolle says so wisely. But my point in time is telling me that I really can’t say that. I need to act on my dreams this very moment. My mirror is telling me that too. (Just not making mirrors like they used to!!!)

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Rock Wall Reflections…

Life is the sum of all your choices.
~Albert Camus

What was it about that wall that caused me to turn around and photograph it? Tucked along a quiet street it faced me. And I suddenly got it. “That is me,” I thought. A jigsaw puzzle of large and minuscule chunks of life each settled into each other like they were destined to be side-by-side life partners. How evenly uneven each crevasse buttressed the one above and below. As if meant to be as such—so disparate and yet working so well together. If one small rock or larger bolder would be absent the wall couldn’t stand up against the weathering seasons with such strength and purpose. Each has a place within the design of it all. Life moves around and within it embracing each chiseled-out choice with an almost indecipherable velvety green moss as sinewy vines wrap through and over it like a lithe dancer. As if to say all is forgiven. It wasn’t so bad now was it? And guess what? It’s still growing and thriving.

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The Loving Lesson Behind, “It Doesn’t Matter…”

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves—one for your enemy and one for yourself.”
Confucius

“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matter is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

August 4th will always be a day that stops me. It is a day in which I am moved to focus on life in all its simplicity and beauty, and remember…

August 4, 1944, is when Anne Frank and all eight of those with her were betrayed and captured—after two years and one month in hiding. All of them, with the exception of Otto Frank, were murdered in the Holocaust. Mr. Frank was the only one who amazingly survived to keep his daughter’s legacy alive.

Most of you know about my long friendship with Otto Frank, documented in my talks and book, Dear Cara-Letters From Otto Frank. There is so much I learned from my extraordinary mentor, but one of the pivotal lessons was something he said to me when we finally met in person after years and years of correspondence.

We were quietly chatting in his home in Basel, Switzerland, when I asked him, “Otto, do you know who betrayed you?” His reaction startled me. He turned and stared into my eyes and just said simply, “It doesn’t matter.”

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A Happy Birthday Thank You, to Ethan and Jesse

“Oh very young
What will you leave us this time?
You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now
They will vanish away like your daddy’s best jeans
Denim blue fading up to the sky.

And though you want them to last forever
You know they never will
You know they never will
And the patches make the goodbye harder still.”

~ Cat Stevens

They arrived on this planet in the early seventies, 1971 and 1973 to be exact. My sons, Ethan and Jesse, both came home from the hospital to the tune of the exact same song played on the radio two years apart: Tin-Tin’s, “Toast and Marmalade for Tea.” That song is now the song we play to celebrate their birthdays. It still makes me cry every time I hear it.

As both of their birthdays are about to be celebrated I’m feeling especially mushy (and old!) now in my reminiscing of that time. On April 17th, Jesse will be 40 years old. And on April 27th, Ethan will be 42! How in the world did that happen!??? They’re both catching up with me.

Born in the L.A. spring it was a joyful time to get to know each other. Everything was sunny and fresh and I would rock and nurse their beautiful little bodies in the sunshine on our deck surrounded by the sharp pungent smell of Eucalyptus trees and the brilliance of begonias and camellias everywhere.

Yet life outside this bucolic setting wasn’t always so sweet. To give you an idea of what the headlines were like back then here’s a quick glimpse of some of the key aspects that pop out at me. I remember the political backdrop of such innocence during those child-rearing times often being in counter-balance to what was going on in the “real” world. For me, the late sixties and seventies were a kaleidoscope of emotional sound and site-bites – so many triggers of pain, pathos and prayers for peace: Kent State and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Southern whites storming a bus to prevent integration, the Chicago 7, the death of Janis Joplin, the first Earth Day celebration, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the Native American Movement at Alcatraz, Vietnamization. I was watching the unthinkable on TV – race riots and Vietnam protests. So much horror. Brutality. (Though it seems like Disney compared to what we’re experiencing today.)

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Guest Spot on KRXA 540

On Sunday, November 11, 2012, I was the guest of Michelle Jackson on KRXA 540 radio to talk about my relationship with Otto Frank and my book, Dear Cara: Letters from Otto Frank.

Hear the recording on how I was impacted both by Anne Frank’s Diary and by the meaningful words that Otto wrote to me throughout my youth into adult hood.

Listen Now »

You can also buy the book directly from Amazon.

I Yam What I Yam

“The sun shines not on us but in us.”
― John Muir*

I’d left the yam alone in the kitchen bowl for far too long. Plans to bake or cook or boil it had definitely passed and now it remained ready to be tomorrow’s next garbage addition. Then I noticed the little buds peeping out of it. Tiny little leafy reminders not unlike the famous Monty Python movie quip seemed to shout at me, “I’m not dead yet!” And so it wasn’t. The hearty tuber was very much alive and worthy of being appreciated if not for a delicious meal, certainly a delicious work of natural beauty.

I placed it in a vase, added water and placed it in the sunshine. And in just a matter of days “Oila!” It transformed into this viney wonder spreading its loveliness out and over and above my kitchen sink.

As this is but another of my Nature Teachers, the Lesson was very much learned: that even if we believe we are on empty, and have absolutely nothing left to give or receive there is an indomitable strength of will to thrive and shine. There is alive within us all a voice shouting to be heard, “I’m not dead yet!” It’s that treasure, that goldmine glowing inside our soul wanting us to grow beyond our challenges if we would only take the time to nurture who we are. We’re wired to live even if all looks hopeless and in counterpoint to what we think is so.

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Rooting for the Aspen…

“Maybe you are searching among branches for what only appears in the roots.”
– Rumi

I’ve always been so drawn to them—Aspen trees. Their beauty bedazzles. You have to stop and stare. On our recent travels to the rocky majesty of Crested Butte, Colorado, my husband Pete and I did just that, forced to look closer and take photos of what we long ago discovered about them: These gorgeous groves are connected by one single seedling spread by root suckers! Brand new stems in the colony appear at up to 98-130 feet from the parent tree.

Pointing the camera at their legendary roots I saw for myself the wonder of their reputation. Entwined together, as if holding hands, were rows-upon-rows of gnarly root systems—one disappearing into the grasp of the other beside it. You could barely tell which root belonged to which tree. It all seemed like one continuous extension reaching out to the next.
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Always – A Mother’s 90th Birthday Celebrated

“I’ll be loving you, oh Always
With a love that’s true Always.
When the things you’ve planned
Need a helping hand,
I will understand Always.

Always.

Days may not be fair Always,
That’s when I’ll be there Always.
Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year,
But Always.”
(by Irving Berlin)

The song, “Always” is my mother, Lilly’s, signature song. She’s sung it so beautifully for as long as I can remember hearing her voice. We ask her to perform it at weddings, family gatherings, comforting moments when we just need to hear her sing it. She begins reluctantly at first, convinced she can’t remember the words or sure she doesn’t have the voice anymore, but then magic happens and we find ourselves in tears hearing her gentle rendition of Irving Berlin’s classic love song. And so it seemed natural to make her 90^th birthday this past August 15^th particularly special weaving the “Always” theme throughout.

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An oBEEtuary (and a gift from a Patron Saint)

Photo of bees It’s very quiet outside my window. That’s because the bees are gone. There used to be a buzzing vortex of those (yes, very busy) honey-gatherers in animated waves going about their bzzzz-ness way up high on the fourth floor where we live. And now, because the guy four floors beneath them complained, once again the Homo sapien species takes precedent over the world of other-than-human types.

Of course I’m sorry the guy’s little dog got stung and that there were bees dropping down onto his deck below. I don’t want anyone to suffer in any way, but why do we have to go to such extremes of extermination? I begged the bee guy (a very sweet man who worked alongside his equally endearing son) to please just remove the bees and not kill them. He said the bees had built a huge hive that was imbedded into the walls of both my apartment and that of my next door neighbor. The honey and wax had built up so much that they would do damage to the walls and then there’s the apartment liability thing. Lawyers, corporations, blah-de-blah-de-blah, i.e. “son-of-a-b’s” who overrule honey bees.

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Vive Le Tour de (frankly I don’t get it) France 2012

“I think fairness comes before being selfish. There’s other things to think about than the yellow jersey.”
– Fabian Cancellara

Tour de France

That quote was by one of the top contenders in this year’s Tour de France who dropped out of the race to attend the birth of his second child, saying that he needed to be there for his wife. Above all, he said, he is first a husband and father. Well, in my book, he’s already a winner. And he’s right on all counts even though it must have been an emotional decision in every way for him. But, yes, there definitely ARE other things to think about than winning a yellow jersey or a gold medal or a first place anything.

I’m writing about this famous bicycling race because quite frankly I’m obsessed with it. Along with the Olympics the Tour de France is one of those jaw-dropping sports that leave people like me transfixed and wondering why? Is it worth the holy hell crashes and near-deaths and losses and gut-wrenching misses just seconds from the cross-the-line-win? How does it happen that seemingly perfectly sane (or so it appears from my TV vantage point) athletes are wired to turn into mad peddling machines, starting out major hunks and ending as gaunt stick figures by the time they’ve torn up the mountains and plains, the Pyrenees and Alps—literally an entire tour of France in less than three weeks time!????

I’m exhausted watching this heart-pounding madness since the races just began. But Pete and I can’t stop tuning into it. And I must say that Pete is one patient husband, for millions of reasons, but when it comes to me watching Le Tour with him he’s very kind. Because really I absolutely don’t understand one damned thing about it. Wait. I thought that guy was the winner. What does that mean? How many winners are there?

Nothing makes sense.

I do know that it’s more than a bunch of guys going really fast on bikes until they nearly die. I’m learning that it’s more than one big race and that big clump of undulating bikes is called a “peloton” –not a big clump of bikes. The word “peloton” is French for “ball” or “platoon.” And within that mass of pelotonity (my word not theirs), teammates provide lots of protection to their leaders. They’re providing something called “drafting” to help their leader conserve energy better.

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