On Monday, a Denver Post columnist wrote an article about this spring’s first-ever prom at Florence Crittenton High School for teen mothers, and the article elicited negative comments that so upset me that at first I was at a loss for words. I’ve been working on a project involving the school’s first-ever leadership class, and that class has turned the prom into a hands-on leadership project. Those who complain about the prom say it’s a reward for bad behavior. What they may not know is that this prom is also a practical training program in goal-setting, planning, and execution. It’s teaching this class the very accountability the naysayers complain they don’t have.

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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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My decision to leave and travel around the world with a 13-year-old was not impulsive but directed. At the time, I hardly realized the impact on everyone who was involved with this journey. The gift of telling the story from my current perspective is interesting in that so much more of it is understood.

I truly expected this painting to fall apart by now, but it’s fine.

The date was September 10, 1997, and I will never forget the morning my husband dropped our youngest daughter and myself off at the bus stop on our way to JFK airport and the world. I had never traveled by myself or been out of the country more than stepping over the Canadian border one time. But when you know you have to do something, courage finds a place in your heart. We left with too much stuff and started a process of getting rid of things in Chile that lasted all the way to Thailand. I was traveling with a portable wooden easel and 20 pounds of oil paints. I didn’t realize when I left how hard it would be to find mineral spirits when I didn’t understand the language. It was a constant challenge in each country that we went to, but we were eventually able to find it every time.

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Allow me to share with all of you this valentine to my husband. Dale, you may recall I told you this fairy tale 14 years ago, though it’s grown up a bit since then. Happy Valentine’s Day to my soul mate, with all my love…

Why The Princess Hit The Road
by Cara Lopez Lee

Once upon a time there was a lonely Princess who, like most princesses, was in search of a prince. Since most searches of that kind end in disaster, you might wonder why she bothered. It might be blamed on her Fairy Godmother.

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DRESS REHEARSALS

Adventures are like dress rehearsals for the real thing. I have spent my life careening from one adventure to the next - always looking for the next big trip to tick off my list. Whether climbing Kilimanjaro, trekking through Bhutan or scuba diving with sharks, I told myself that by taking great risk, I was learning to handle crisis. Of course, I never imagined the kind of crisis I might have to face.

Climbing Kilimanjaro, I told myself that by taking great risk, I was learning to handle crisis.

I told myself that perhaps if I kept moving, kept adventuring, those bad things would never find me. If I filled my life with chosen risks, then there’d be no room for the unwanted ones, as if each life had a danger quota. For years I convinced myself that by taking calculated risks I was actually forestalling calamity.

But that’s not how it worked.

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When I ask my friend Amy Callahan why she became a fire dancer, her amused look seems to say, “Duh, Cara it’s fi-re!” Aloud she says, “I saw some people doing it in a nightclub and I thought it was way cool. At the time, I was into fitness competitions and bodybuilding. I’m not terribly competitive, but I figured out I really like putting on a show in tiny costumes.” Add fire, and she finds the combo irresistible. “I get a kick out of making the crowd go, ‘Oooh! Ahhh!’”

Amy twirled batons as a girl, and she’s been a performer and athlete most of her life, including: a cheerleader, belly dancer, clown, yoga instructor, and swing dancer. So when she apprenticed with a fire performer she learned fast. Within a few weeks she was spinning flaming torches.

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I once took a cooking class in Thailand, but there’s no need to go that far to experience a foreign culture or learn an exotic dish. I recently learned to make momos, or Nepali dumplings, right here in Denver. My teachers were two Nepali refugees from Bhutan. This was a cooking class with a story to tell.

This story started in the 1890s, when the Bhutanese government invited Nepali farmers to settle in southern Bhutan to help supply food to the country. In 1958, Bhutan’s royal government granted citizenship to the settlers. Then, in 1988, the king ordered a census in southern Bhutan; those citizens who couldn’t produce land tax receipts from the year 1958 were reclassified as illegal immigrants. In the ensuing years, Bhutan’s efforts to protect its cultural heritage devolved into a campaign to eradicate Nepalese traditions.

Years later Hari would teach cooking in Denver, and tell a kitchen full of American women how Nepalis in Bhutan weren’t allowed to speak their own language.

Hari Khanal was a toddler then, but years later she would teach cooking classes in Denver, and one night she would tell a kitchen full of American women how Nepalis in Bhutan weren’t allowed to speak their own language or wear their traditional clothes. Women weren’t allowed to have long hair. Many Nepalis were subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, and torture. “The women were, I don’t know how to say it, they were forced…” Hari looked uncomfortable as she tried to remember the word for rape. Her family was one of many who fled to Nepal. Nepal’s government wouldn’t repatriate the refugees, so they lived in a refugee camp. “They wouldn’t let us go for 17 years.” Today Hari has such a ready smile it’s tempting to think none of it happened, but for many the crisis continues.

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When Indian activist Rita Banerji asked me to post an excerpt from my memoir on her blog, Gender Equal, I didn’t just feel humbled - I almost felt ashamed. Gender Equal seeks to raise awareness of global gender inequities. The blog is an initiative of the 50 Million Missing campaign, which is fighting female genocide in India. What could my book, about a Western woman professional empowering herself through a solo trek around the world, add to her mission? Then it occurred to me, it might offer hope: I enjoy a kind of freedom many women long for. It also occurred to me that I didn’t start out a fully-realized independent woman. At the start of my book, I was a victim of domestic violence. If you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll take this opportunity to read the opening excerpt from They Only Eat Their Husbands: A Memoir of Alaskan Love, World Travel, and the Power of Running Away. Then please read about India’s 50 Million Missing. If we want to empower other women, knowledge is a start.

My friend and fellow-blogger, Rebecca Elia, has asked her followers a good question: “How does your fun little girl self show up in your life now?” Check out my answer at her blog: Feminine Revelations. I hope it prompts you to think of your own answer to the question, and maybe inspires you to play a little more in all you do.