“Endings are hard.” That’s what my friend Eileen once told me. She writes sitcoms, but I find that her quote applies to just about anything. When I got around to writing about the final week of my book tour for They Only Eat Their Husbands, I was already home and couldn’t bring myself to finish.

The road trip itself was difficult to finish. As on many treks, I was tired but not ready to stop.

The road trip itself was difficult to finish. As on many treks, I was tired but not ready to stop. As with many stories, I knew it had to end, but wasn’t sure what it all meant.

Let’s see, shall we?

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I don’t feel like I’ve had a day off unless I get out in the sun and do something. Sometimes I almost work harder on my days off - skiing, hiking, biking, gardening - than I do on workdays, when I spend most of the day sitting at a keyboard. Playing outside relaxes me, even more than meditation or yoga - talk about hard work!

Playing outside relaxes me, even more than meditation or yoga - talk about hard work!

In spring, I garden, and in summer, I hike. Both are simple ways to honor the adventurer in me, in between big-ticket challenges. On those spring days when the garden doesn’t need me, I do easy hikes, to ramp up to my summer push into the high country. Early in the season, I’m still a bit lazy, not yet ready to rise at dawn to reach the top of a mountain before afternoon storms turn me into a small but effective lightning rod. So, in May, I tend to keep my hikes close to town and no-brainer.

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“Awards are fun…” my friend Jen once wrote me in an email. Now I remember that phrase every time I enter a writing contest. It packs an attitude that seems to say, “Go out and play.” I have some fun to report: my non-fiction personal essay has won first place in the Denver Woman’s Press Club In-House Writing Contest. It’s a bit embarrassing to post the essay here, because it is, indeed, quite personal. But writing is communication, and what is communication if it’s not shared? So here’s my story:

SMELLY MAKE THIS BED
by Cara Lopez Lee

I tuck the sheet under my chin and try not to move, hoping to trap it, that smell like spoiled sausage and goat cheese. It’s only a gesture, because already I know it’s too late.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Nice,” he laughs.

“So, this is how love dies,” I say, “one fart at a time.”

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My mother didn’t raise me, my father’s mother did. He called her Mom, so I thought that was her name. Grampa bought me Dr. Seuss books, but Mom taught me to read them. One of my earliest memories is reading to her, “Hand, hand, fingers, thumb. Dum ditty, Dum ditty, Dum dum dum.” My love of books is forever entwined with the comfort of Mom’s lap.

Grampa bought me Dr. Seuss books, but it was Mom who taught me to read them.

Mom used to take me with her to the bowling alley. I still have a scar from a massive splinter that pierced my knee while I crawled on the wooden benches. When I was eight, I begged her to teach me to play. I bowled competitively until I was 16, but never became as good as Mom. My high game was 216, hers was 278 - she rolled that one in her early 70s. She doesn’t bowl anymore, but she didn’t quit until arthritis stopped her when she was about 79.

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I am not a poet. This is not humility, false or otherwise, nor is it an excuse, but a simple fact. Yet I appreciate poetry, and every now and then I feel compelled to write a poem, though I have no real idea how. Yesterday I went to a gathering of poets at the Denver Woman’s Press Club and listened to several club members and audience members share their lyrical thoughts. Here’s what I took with me when I left:

A Balloon in My Car

Where are the nametags and the tea and the ice?
I don’t know poetry, but I know how to reach and boil and tumble the cubes.
After the reading, a balloon in my car nods in approval.

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