Annette Maxberry-Carrara embodies empathy, compassion and courage. From helping her Afghan daughter from the Taliban, escaping the Algerian civil war to getting involved in political activism in the United States, the chapters Annette continues to write in her life are rich and unencumbered. While one of her first jobs might have been with ‘Corporate America’ at a Bank, her journey most recently to screenwriter is filled with using the power of imagination to battle chronic pain from lupus and fibromyalgia, not giving failure power and working through adversity.

TRANSCRIPT

Archita: [00:00:00] You are a celebrated author, Annette, a former tea room owner, and a founder of multiple lunch in writing groups around the world, a mom, of course, an aspiring Hollywood actress at one point, certified psychotherapist. Tell me more about how you keep writing these different chapters. They're just different, very different and disparate from each other. are you deliberate about it?

Annette: [00:00:25] So I just swore to myself, I wouldn't be bored and I wouldn't be boring. So every time I get to the end of a chapter, I just figure I have to do something else because I don't want to be bored.  A year and a half ago, my walking got so bad because of arthritis and back issues and my hip, that I finally had to go into a wheelchair. That was really devastating for me because I was a pretty active person beforehand, even though I was in a lot of pain, and that really curved things.

And so I just decided, you know what, I can complain about my situation or I could actually do what I can do in this situation. So I won't let my handicaps define me. Luckily recently I've had a hip replacement and I'm out of the wheelchair and I'm walking and that's very exciting. But, from the wheelchair I decided to do what I could do.

And one of the things was I started a tea room in Spain and I could do that from the wheelchair. This is a little challenging trying to decorate and oversee all of the reconstruction of the place, but it did get depressing. I have to say, I'm not a person who doesn't get depressed, I get depressed. And I get to feeling sorry for myself, just like any human being. But at some point I allow myself to wallow in my self pity to a point. And then I say, that's enough, I am not dead. So I'm going to do something else with my life. I'm not just going to sit around and vegetate. So that's really my motto.

I'm just afraid of boredom and so I get on with it. I find something new to do and something that interests me and challenges me and I go for it.

Archita: [00:02:30] You shared the story with me, it was a pretty brave thing that you did, with rescuing your Afghan daughter. And so how did that come about esentially?

Annette: [00:02:38] I was just looking online one day in my email and I got this email from a source I had never seen before. And they were asking if I wanted, if we wanted an Afghan student to stay with us for the school year.

For some reason I just said, yes . As I get these feelings about things , I just jump on things if they feel right in my gut. I just said yes.  So I talked to my family about it, my husband and kids, and they were very not gung-ho.

They were like, what are you crazy?  But, after we talked about it, I thought,  this'll be really good for the kids because they have no exposure really, to people outside of their American experience. Other than the French, because my husband's French and they had spent a lot of time in Europe , so anyway we decided to do it.

 It happened to be, there was one girl who hadn't been placed and her name was the Yalda,  which means, in Persian the longest night of the year.  The winter solstice , it is a beautiful name.

We awaited her at the airport and this girl in a giant t-shirt , showed up in her hijab and, she was scared out of her mind. And of course, as anyone would be 15 years old, traveling to a new culture.  We took her home and we all learned to accommodate one another and it was just wonderful.

She and I clicked immediately and I just loved her  and  every year thing was fine. She was adapting to school in America, which was probably a huge shock for her. And at Christmas, she called her family in Afghanistan. And her father told her that they had received a night letter from the Taliban, which is a letter that comes at night that slipped under the door, the gate of the house and the letter basically said if she didn't return for her punishment and, the punishment would be death. Then they would kill her entire family.

So there, she was in this dilemma, do I stay here and protect myself or do I go home and save my family, sacrificing her own life for them? And of course she wanted to go home because that's the kind of person that she was. And, I of course said no way, am I sending a 15 year old home to be murdered by the Taliban?

I talked to her father and he said, look, don't worry about us. I'll protect us. We'll be moving from house to house. They went in hiding for a few years and he said, you keep Yalda there. Do not let her come home to be killed. And so I called up the organization, which was part of the state department to, talk to them about this.

And they said, she probably just wants to stay in America, but we'll check it out. And they checked it out and they came back and said, yes, it is an authentic threat. This letter, they sent me a copy of it. It had official stamps on it from the Taliban.

At that time, George Bush had already declared, mission accomplished and, that there was no problem with Taliban in Afghanistan that they were gone. Obviously they weren't. So I got no help from them and they said, no, she's going to have to go home, but she'll go home.

We'll send her back to, and she came from Herat and they said they would send her back to Kabul. And I said, what's she going to do in Kabul? They said, that's up to her. I don't know. I said, are you going to protect her? They said, no. So I said, this is not okay.

So I did everything I could to get her refugee status. And, I was basically told at every turn, it's not going to happen because the judges who approve that are Bush appointees, and they're not going to go against what he says that the Taliban has been vanquished.

So in the end, I talked to them and they said, not only does she have to go back, we're moving the data because we're afraid that she will try to escape. If she's not on the plane by this date then homeland security will be at your house the next day. And she will be taken into custody and you guys are going to be in trouble too.

So I really was left with no choice, but to try to smuggle her into Canada, which I did. We got a hotel room in Buffalo and I got a rental car and the next morning we drove across the border and I let her out. I said, you go in and you declare yourself a refugee at the border control  police. And I said, and my husband happened to be in Toronto at the time. I said, I'll go on into Toronto. And this afternoon, I'll come back and bring all your belongings so that you could get settled in. Because we had heard that it was that easy from others who had done it. It wasn't that easy.

So I let her out and I tried to go through the border control and they said, who was that? I said, oh no one, just a refugee. And I was so ignorant and they said, you can't do that. I said, why not? And they said, don't bother, don't worry about it. And they took me to, they basically took my passport, locked me up and grilled me for a couple of hours and said, basically, you're going to prison for human trafficking. I was terrified, absolutely terrified and, called my husband. I was crying, I'm going to prison, I'll never see my children again. And, there was a huge, fine involved, and it was just a nightmare.

And then they left me alone and they came back and they said, you know what? She's from Afghanistan. She can stay. It's okay, you can go. And yeah so they said, would you like to see her? I've said, yeah, of course. So I went back to see her and the woman who was doing the intake said, why didn't you just make an appointment?

I said, I didn't know you could make an appointment.

So it was a terrifying experience, but in the end, everything worked out. I called the state department and flipped them off in a way and said, guess what? She's, n Canada. She can't go home. She won't be on that plane. And then we went about our merry way, and now she's living in Canada, she's married.

She's just finished her nursing degree and training. So she's looking for a job as a nurse. And I think she'll be fabulous as a nurse. She's just very compassionate and loving. So she came back to see us for Christmas. And her sister and her husband we took in later to help them get established in the US also joined us and they have two beautiful little girls, so it was a wonderful homecoming.

And we were very excited.

Archita: [00:10:24] That's beautiful. It's truly beautiful that you were part of a family finding a better path and better life out of their circumstances that they were dealt.

Annette: [00:10:37] Exactly it was just great.

Archita: [00:10:39] Was it one of the bravest things you think you ever did?

Annette: [00:10:44] Oh no.

Archita: [00:10:46] What was the bravest thing you think you ever did?

Annette: [00:10:51] No, there've been lots of times. I don't know if they're brave or just stupid that, I remember years ago when I was living in New York City. It was during the late eighties and wilding was very popular where these sort of packs of kids would just go about the city, destroying things and attacking people with baseball bats.

And there was a man, a homeless man lying on the ground. I guess he was, I don't know, drunk or whatever, but these kids came up and they were just, hitting him with baseball bats and I stopped them. I just ran up and, I'm not even five feet tall and I said, Hey, that's not okay.

Get away from him. And they were all armed with baseball bats and there I was armed with nothing, but my disgust. And, I chased them away, I guess that was probably my most courageous moment. Although there were times in Algeria when we lived there that got pretty hairy. And I don't know that I was courageous, but I did endure some scary moments.

We were almost kidnapped once and this man held a gun to us. And he pointed it right at me through the windshield and then another guy dragged my husband out of the car and I was six months pregnant. And I just remember being terrified of that. But, I don't guess that counts as courage. It just feels as being scared.

Archita: [00:12:33] But you made it through that. So how, talking about the Algerian civil war, you were in the thick of it while you were pregnant and you were evacuated by a polarizing figure back then, how has that experience shaped your views on both sides of the war?

Annette: [00:12:51] The whole experience of going through Algeria was really earth shaking for me because I had no idea.

I knew what poverty was by seeing poor people in the U S but I had no idea that people had to rotate beds. had to rotate who got the bed because there weren't enough beds. I had no idea that people would have to eat, loaves and loaves of bread, because it was subsidized by the government.

And there was nothing else to eat. I had never seen that before. , but what I saw also was that. These people were incredibly generous. For instance, if we walked into the bakery and everything was gone, because it usually was by the time we got there, the woman who owned the bakery would give her own allotment of bread to us.

And no matter how much we protested, she would not take no for an answer. And if you needed to ask someone directions, they would get in the car with you and take you there and then walk back to where they were going and you could not get them to not do that. And, we were invited to dinner somewhere at the home of this young man I made friends with and.

His mother gave us their allotment of chicken for the month. And it was just one leg, drum stick and thigh. That's all the meat they got all month long and they gave it to us and she would not take no for an answer. So there was this kind of generosity that I have never seen before, and it was embarrassing actually.

It was really embarrassing. I began to understan what poverty was and how it affected things globally. And right after we got there, they had the elections and, the Islamic fundamentalists won the front Islamic do salute and they won the elections because they took care of people.

They fed them, they drove them to the polls. They gave them medicine, they did what was needed, where the government wasn't doing that. So they won. And of course the government nullified the delay sections and that's when all hell broke loose. That's when the war started more or less. And, so yeah, that shaped me, they started killing everyone who wasn't Muslim before we left.

And right after we left, they shot our neighbor who was Italian five times in the face, right in front of our gates and, people that we knew who stayed behind were murdered.

There were just a group, many of them had trained in Afghanistan. And then after the Afghan war was over, they came home and they basically had nothing to do except for cause trouble. Also in, Algeria at that time, the population, most of them were under 21. So they had no jobs, no food, no prospects.

And you see that today, that, In other countries people get up to mischief when they have no prospects and no food and death is pretty much certain if for a lot of babies being born very often for the mothers. It's just such a common experience that life begins to be cheap in a way, because you're not expected to live very long.

So it really affects how people behave and the risks that they take. So it helped me to understand that a lot more and have compassion for them in ways that I didn't before.

Archita: [00:16:48] Talking about actually polarizing views . You mentioned, in today's times where polarizing views are abound, thanks to many different reasons we have. You were a liberal in Texas many years ago and are a liberal, you're still in Texas. So how did having a different set of views impact your ability to share and create what you wanted to do? And what did you do about it?

Annette: [00:17:11] When we first moved back to Texas, we were living in France and, we moved back to Texas. My husband saw it as an adventure where I saw it as, I don't know a kind of culture shock back in the buckle of the Bible belt and it was shocking to me. It was really hard because I worked really hard to get out of that environment and move to New York and established my own identity apart from all of that conservative belief system. And so when we came back, I really looked for people who had the same ideas I had and I couldn't find them.

It took about six years to find a friend who had liberal views. And, I just thought that was crazy. In fact, I had to stalk her on the internet because I could not find anyone to talk to about what was going on in the world, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and I just, there was no one.

 I stalked this woman on the internet, because there was a site where you can, have you had money to politically which political candidates? And I found someone not too far from me. So I looked up her name and I found out where she worked and I sent her an email and I'm sure she thought I was complete lunatic.

And I said, I'm desperate for liberal friends. Do you think that we could go to lunch? she told her husband, if I'm not back in two hours, call the police because this crazy woman wants to have lunch. We are still friends. But after that I became a, precinct chair. And I got more involved in politics in Dallas.

And at that time I met more people. So my husband then was transferred to Austin and I thought, oh gosh, I'm not going to go through this again, not another six years. So I started this organization called Liberal Ladies Who Lunch. And it was just, I thought, that's funny. I like alliteration, I'm a writer.  I wanna have lunch with some women. I set it up and I thought there would be two or three women, maybe as many as five who would come out and we would have lunch together. 30 showed up the first time and it was a fiasco.

We're in a really noisy restaurant. We couldn't hear each other, but it gave me the courage to do it again. I found a quiet room in a restaurant and started having meetings there. And then my friends in Dallas said, oh, please start that here. And I started one in Dallas and Fort Worth and Houston and San Antonio.

And then they started growing in other areas and, it really took off from there. So I don't know how many women are members now because I cut them loose and let them go their own way. But I think they're probably around 3000 women. I'm not sure, maybe 2,500. I don't know, but it was really exciting because I saw women who had been afraid to talk to anybody about their beliefs getting involved in the political system. It gave them courage because they do then they weren't the only ones who felt that way. And, some of them have run for office and it's just been really exciting. And then we moved to Germany and, which is where I met you. And, then we moved to Spain and we were gone for five years in Europe and now we've come back to Texas and it's still going on.

The organization is still thriving and plenty of women think they're more motivated now than ever, for obvious reasons. And, it's just very exciting and heartening to see it happen.

Archita: [00:21:02] That's really fabulous. You spoke about growth experiences and all the different things you've done so far.   As you look back on your life and even today, who would you say has been the most influential person in your life and why?

Annette: [00:21:17] I think the most influential person in my life was my father and the reason was he was always very confident. He was good at reinventing himself. He was military for 21 years. Then he retired and ran a gas station and then he became a. Oh, he only had an eighth grade education and he started the ROTC department at a college and then he became a realtor and became president of the board of realtors.

And then he became state commander of the disabled American veterans, and he did everything he could to help people who needed help.

 And although he and I came from very different worlds because he grew up during the depression. And I grew up in a very privileged state because he had made money in real estate and so on. So I had a much more privileged upbringing. I just saw what he did for other human beings for people in his family. And that really inspired me really inspired me. So I would have to say it's my father.

Archita: [00:22:50] That's wonderful. It's so interesting because as you mapped out all the different journeys he took, I can see a lot of that in phases when you've taken so many different journeys.

Annette: [00:22:59] If there's something you want to do, just go do it. it's not the end of the world. If it fails, but it certainly fails if you never do it.

Archita: [00:23:06] Annette, that gave me chills. It's certainly feels if you never do it, that's so true. We're just so fearful sometimes to even give something a chance that we let that fear. Be all encompassing. But we've failed ourselves if we have not even given it a chance. Thank you for that.

It's truly interesting. You mentioned when you were in a wheelchair, you had a different perspective. You are a really active person. How did your time in the wheelchair shape your perspective on everything that you've accomplished and what it is that you want to accomplish? As you worked your way out of the wheelchair and you had the opportunity to do that, and you are lucky enough to be able to do that for yourself ?

Annette: [00:23:58] It held me back and I felt sorry for myself. I really did. Right on the Mediterranean right on the beach for three years. And I never once got to put my feet in the water or walk on the sand. So yeah, enough of that . It's only so much self pity that a person can endure, and then it gets to be really awful.

I just figured do what you can do and what have you not accomplished that you'd like to accomplish. And, I had always wanted to be a screenwriter. I've always been interested in film and I worked on, trying to create a documentary years ago. And that was interesting.

Didn't get too far out of the gate with it, but had some wild experiences. And I hadn't really gone all the way with it yet. So I thought, let me just explore this and see if it's something that I want to do. So I took a retreat in France last April. It was beautiful, was the rocker birdie retreats and, I met some really interesting people. And mentors. And so I'm going down that direction now because it's something I've always wanted to do.  I'm working on a screenplay about my experiences with Yalta, the Afghan girl right now. And, it may get made into a film. It may not. I think that's one thing that I've learned over the years is you can try really hard to get a project off the ground and it might never happen.

I've had a lot of failed projects and a lot of successful ones, but you don't know what's going to happen. And really it is the voyage the trip that is worth it because you learn so much. You learn so much about everything and mostly about yourself. So I'm looking forward to it.

We'll see what happens and hopefully it'll be something good. Of course, I'm visualizing myself at the Academy awards.   life can be very short in my family. My father died at 59. My brother died 60 and, I'm 63, so I don't know. I feel like on some level I'm living on borrowed time.

Although my mother lived to 89, but, you just don't know how long you have, and if you want to do it, you better get doing it no matter what. And your health doesn't get better over the years. I know that when I'm 90 or a hundred, if should I live that long, I probably won't have the energy I have today.

So if there's something I want to do, I better do it now. And that's what I try to encourage people to do, because you just never know what the future can bring.

Archita: [00:26:52] So true. You shared with me recently that you had a boyfriend at one point in time, tell you, find an untapped opportunity.

Annette: [00:27:01] It was Chemical Bank's world headquarters, and they were remodeling the inside and it was all made of marble and granite and they were jack hammering everything and they had to disconnect the, signs that say next to the next teller cause they had 18 tellers.

And so they hired me and another woman. And, they gave us these jackets that smelled like dead fish. And my jacket was way too long for me.  And, I watched every day as the Brinks truck came and brought money at, I don't know, 2:30 or whenever it did.

And there I was, struggling to pay my rent and to eat in New York city. And for some reason I had this idea that maybe I would Rob the bank and I was an actress, so I thought I'll dress up in a costume stew. I'll look like a little old lady or a pregnant woman or something, or a man.

And they won't know it me. So I really got this idea and I talked to the security guard. I didn't tell him what I was up to, but he was like, Oh yeah, I talked to the FBI, they never catch these people, blah, blah, blah. And I was actually out of my mind. So I had lunch with my boyfriend that day.

And I told him about it because I said, I want you to be my getaway driver for, I want you to have a motorcycle because there's so much traffic there in front of the bank. I said, you have a motorcycle and we'll get away that way. And of course, he looked at me like I had three heads and said, you're out of your freaking mind.

He said but he was an economics major Columbia. He said, you just need to find an untapped market and tap it. You're very creative. I thought, Oh boy, he's right. I can't rob the bank. That's just crazy. So I went back to work and a little bit later this, transgender person came in and he had really a bad wig, bad makeup, bad clothing, but he was genuinely trying to look beautiful. And I thought, you know what? I have all this experience in makeup because I was an actress. And also because I was selling this line of makeup to housewives in Brooklyn, not very successfully. And I thought, you know what, there's my  untapped market, I will sell makeup to cross dressers and, transgender people. In those days probably, we didn't have the consciousness that we have today about people, but I thought that's going to be great. And so I ran downstairs on my break and I called the, we didn't have cell phones in those days and I called the village voice and I put an ad for free workshop in makeup for cross-dressers and trans people. And because if it's a free workshop, then they will publish it for free. And I got so many calls. I got calls from men as far away as Japan and Europe, my phone would not stop ringing. And I realized I did the first makeup workshop and none of the men came dressed as women. They all came dressed as men and then one person went into the bathroom and changed and came out and I did the demonstration on him and I realized that all I had to do to destroy this person was to say, You're one ugly, broad, you're not pretty at all.

And I realized that I had given men that power my entire life, that I had allowed myself to be, destroyed. So it was really transformative for me that, ,that workshop  I learned so much about what it means to be a woman and how this facade has nothing to do with it.

Archita: [00:31:47] As you think about all the different adversities that you have been faced with, or you found yourself in, whatever that circumstance be, you found a way to step away and step out of it. And yrd, make it great, in, on your own terms, which has just been fabulous. Is that a question you would have asked yourself that I have not asked to this interview so far?

 Annette: [00:32:17] I think I would ask and I'm not sure I know the answer. How do I, because I have lupus and fibromyalgia. So there are times when, I just don't have the energy to get out of bed and I'm in pain constantly. And I guess I would ask how do you not give up? Cause I see people  with lupus. And, I see people suffering so much more than I do, and some of them just want to give up and suicide is a big issue, for people with fibromyalgia and chronic pain. And, I guess that's the question because I've never been able to answer it.

How do I not give up when those things happen? And it's something that I just really have to think about. And I think it's the same way that the thing I learned when I was a child, I'm just exploring this right now as we're talking. But when I was a child that I was afraid of being bored and I didn't have the options to, recreate my life.

I was just a kid. What I learned to do was use my imagination and go into my imagination and create another world. And I think that's what I do when I'm ill and feeling badly. I use my imagination to create another world. And for people who don't have a lot of imagination, I think it's very hard. but I think that can be developed.

I think there are ways of prompting it, just like we prompt for the story groups. And I think that's the thing that's most useful in life is to have imagination of a better life, because I think that we can only go as far as we can imagine, but we can go pretty far. If we could imagine pretty far, I believe we can create most of it.

 But, one of the things that I do also for chronic pain is I send love to that area that hurts. And that gives me some relief. The other thing and this, I found really helpful is I allow the pain, I don't fight it or resist it. So I just go into it, say it was my hip and I would just focus on that area and say, I release you. I release you. I allow you to go. I allow you to be whether you're here or there, or anywhere is fine with me. I would say that little mantra all the time and it would really relieve it for me.

Archita: [00:35:12] It's just like the biggest challenge of just human nature. You've just done it. The negative thing has not even happened. And it already resisting it in the anticipation that it will happen.

I remember you telling me this , the last time we spoke and  it's just unraveling  what shaped you to give you that motivation to keep seeing things through?

Annette: [00:35:32] That's interesting that you say that because I often see myself as a person who doesn't see things through. It's not funny anymore. And I just quit. I think, my husband's thinks, that I've wasted money on these things that I never went all the way with. So I don't see myself so much as someone who sees things through, but as I look back at it now, I guess I did see things through.

And I think we have to really be fair with ourselves. Sometimes we have to quit things that don't work for us. And maybe that's how we see other things through, because we're not spending our time on things that aren't working, but as far as accomplishing things, like when I wrote my book, my novel and that took me about five years, cause I had too little bitty kids and didn't know the first thing about novel writing.  I just kept pushing myself because I wanted to have it finished.

Yes. I think that's probably the biggest key to learn, to say no, because , if you are someone who is accomplished, people are always asking you to do things because they think of you as someone who will get it done.

And if you're a person who is generous with your time and spirit  you get a lot of people asking you to do things. So you just have to learn to say no and just do what brings you joy or what you find interesting.

Archita: [00:37:06] So were there  any choices you had to make to ensure that you could do all of those different things while you were being a mom?

Annette: [00:37:13] One thing you have to sacrifice is expediency. There were things that I wanted to do with my life, but my kids are still little and yeah, it was really a choice of being with them or doing those things. And I mostly chose to be with my kids, but they're only little for a very short time. And then they go off to school. while they're at school, you have more time.

And then as they get older, They're gone, they're gone too soccer practice or whatever they do, and you have a lot more time. So actually the biggest challenge and is not when the kids are small. But when the kids are gone, cause now they're grown and I have all the time in the world and I get very little done because I don't have any limitations.

And I think creativity thrives in limitation. I was thinking of a Rose Bush, one of those climbing Rose bushes, just slumps over.

It looks stupid unless there's a trellis they're free to climb on. And that's what the is biggest challenges. When you have no limitations, that's when it really gets hard. And that's when you have to impose them on yourself 

Archita: [00:38:34] I love that. And that creativity thrives within limitations.

So one of the questions we ask all of our guests is what do you love the most about yourself ?

Annette: [00:38:51] Good question. I think what I love most about myself is that I will not let adversity get me down. That I can wallow in it for a while, but then I pick myself up and go on to something else that I enjoy. And I have hope and a positive outlook on life,

Archita: [00:39:20] That absolutely brings it full circle. Thank you. So very much a net for giving us an opportunity to walk along side, you. As you shared your life stories with our listeners on the nine oh six today

Annette: [00:39:36] I appreciate your asking me to do this. Thank you.