They Only Eat Their Husbands

by Cara Lopez Lee

  Seven months later, I accepted a job on the Great Plains, next to the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by the friendly but outspoken people of Colorado. Everything here felt open and untamed: the land, the people, me. From Colorado, I traveled the States as a field producer and writer for a TV show about artists who made functional art for homes. I went on to work for other shows on HGTV, Food Network, and Discovery Health. The traveling and writing were fulfilling, but after a few years, I wanted more free time to finish my memoir.

  I went on to become a freelance author, editor, and writing coach, which gave me more freedom to set my own hours and call my own shots. Throughout my global trek, I had asked God to show me my purpose. Fourteen journals and more than twice that many waterways had whispered to me that I was a storyteller. Everything I’ve done since has been in service to that. How could I ask God a question and ignore the answer?

  One reason my career has taken the shape it has is because travel is still important to me. During my world trek, I met Europeans on four- to six-week holidays. They convinced me that the standard two-week American vacation is almost uncivilized. Since then, my career moves have provided opportunities to travel for both work and pleasure. Because time is important to me, my income is humble, but since I have no children, my expenses are small. I drive an old car, buy few clothes, and live in a simple home, saving most spare cash for travel. Within two years after my solo trek, I visited Tanzania, Zanzibar, Malawi, and most of the 50 United States.

  ***

  So how did Sean and I end up getting married? When I returned to Denver, it so happened he had already taken a job in Colorado Springs, about an hour away. We had kept in touch during our time apart, and he had done some counseling, some A.A., and some soul searching. He really had been striving to quit drinking since he’d left Alaska, and he finally did. With that, there was only one obstacle between us and a life together: his long-promised proposal.

  In 2001 and 2002, he drove up to see me every weekend, and we often talked marriage. Then he found a job in Denver. Then he gave notice on his apartment. But he still hadn’t proposed. On my birthday, I was out of town, but I had a feeling that when I returned he might surprise me with a ring. Instead, he showed up in a car packed full of his belongings.

  That’s where I drew the line. “You can’t move any of your stuff into my apartment.” He reacted with disbelief, but I assured him I was serious. I had warned him many times that I wouldn’t live with him again until we were engaged.

  Sean didn’t protest much, just got in his car and drove his stuff all the way back to Colorado Springs. I almost felt sorry for him, but I knew if I didn’t hold firm we might be stuck on that precipice forever. A few hours later he returned and took me out to celebrate my birthday at our favorite restaurant. There, he gave me a journal. Inside, he’d carved the shape of a solitaire diamond engagement ring into the pages. An actual ring nested in the hollow.

  On the flyleaf, he’d written, “Will you marry me?”

  Below that, I wrote, “Yes!”

  He told me he’d had the ring for some time. He had just been wrestling with how to pop the question.

  A year later we got married in front of three witnesses: a couple of friends and Volcán Arenal, an active volcano in Costa Rica. On our wedding night, Arenal erupted with the chugging sound of a train pulling into a station. Flaming red rocks carved fiery paths down the mountainside. The thrilling show was balanced by our relaxed contentment as we leaned into each other on our cabin porch, breathing in the exhalations of the tropical rainforest. We survived that explosive yet peaceful night, and more than eleven years of nights since, most of them in Colorado, but some in faraway places.

  I still travel alone sometimes, but the best trips are now with my husband: Scotland, Peru, Guatemala, the Navajo Nation. Sometimes we return to Alaska where we first met each other, and where I began the long journey to meeting myself.

  Acknowledgments

  It took a phenomenal amount of support to bring this book to life. Before I thank everyone, please allow me to apologize if I overlook anyone who helped me along the way. No doubt many more people deserve my thanks than I can possibly address in a few pages.

  Many thanks to Caleb Seeling and Sonya Unrein for their dedication to authors in the Rocky Mountain region. I deeply appreciate them for giving my story an opportunity to find more readers and vice versa. Thank you to editor Debbie Vance for not only making sure this new edition looks pristine, but also for approaching it with all the delight of a joyful reader.

  Thanks to Matthew Davis, for being the first person to believe in my story, and for his affection for “The Lost American.” For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought. I’m grateful you found me, Matt.

  Thank you to Andrea Dupree, Michael Henry, and everyone at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, without whom I would not have had so many opportunities to refine and present my work, or to make my humble leap into the world of published authors. The mentoring, support, and camaraderie I’ve found at Lighthouse have proved invaluable; it is a shining beacon for Colorado writers.

  Thanks, too, to the Denver Woman’s Press Club. It was lonely typing at home after so many years in noisy offices, and DWPC members not only offered support and encouragement, but delightful friendship and companionship that often kept me from going stir-crazy.

  Loving thanks to my husband, Dale Jolley, for going well beyond our marriage vows in his support of my work and of me. He has heard almost every part of this book read aloud. Often he enjoyed it, sometimes he put up with it, and for both I’m grateful. Reading about your wife’s love life certainly goes beyond the vow, “for better or worse.” Perhaps it belongs under the category, “in sickness and health,” for at some points the penning of my most embarrassing truths seemed like a sickness, or fit of madness, that turned our house into an asylum, with all its blessings and curses. Dale, no one could be a truer friend.

  Many thanks to the friends and colleagues who read and offered feedback on my manuscript, or parts of it, in its various stages, from unwieldy tome to final version, to another final version, and another: Mark Graham, Nobuko Graham, Candace Kearns Read, Kimberly Drake, Heather Hovis, Sarah Stires, Leila Mar, Karen Foster, Lyn Jenkins, Gay Pinder, Tammy Kilgore, Cynthia Zieminski, Lori Howell, Barbara Roos, and Diane Regan, to name most of them. My loving gratitude to my departed grandmother, Caroline Lee, who clarified important background material and who always reminded me that she was proud of my work.

  A special thanks to Tricia Hackel for giving me my first journal in Alaska. I probably would have kept putting off journaling about my Alaskan experiences if it hadn’t been for her. Tricia’s thoughtful and intuitive gesture became the cornerstone for the creation of this memoir, though I didn’t know it at the time.

  Thank you to all the fascinating, generous, intelligent, funny, colorful people I met on my travels: without you, there would be no story. I’m also deeply grateful to the friends and lovers whose lives have some part on these pages. Out of respect, I’ve done my best to disguise the identities of those who might be embarrassed by any of this memoir’s content, and to create amalgams of different people where it helped maintain the pace for readers.

  A memoir is fraught with the potential for unintended offense, but the gift of writing about one’s life is the gift of finding grace even in the conflicts of our pasts. Please forgive me if you were present for any of the events I’ve described and remember it differently; I realize no picture looks the same to all people. It has never been my intent to make anyone look bad or foolish, but rather, to share my sense that none of us is alone in occasionally behaving badly or foolishly. Those who misbehaved on these pages have redeemed themselves with many acts of kindness, generosity, even heroism. I value every moment we’ve shared—the pain and tears as much as the laughter and joy. I believe we’ve learned much together, and since.

  A book doesn’t
fulfill its purpose until it finds a reader. So thank you to all my readers for helping this book fulfill its purpose. I sincerely hope you’ve received something in return.