This week started rough. Activations and supporting a lot of new staff through them with a reduced staff of my own. We’d been quasi activated for days, which meant I worked through last weekend and then we stepped up into full scale activation earlier this last week. I think it resolidified how tired I am of my job. And as much as I love my organization, to some extent, it too.
And then in other news, you’ve got a girlfriend. This actually wasn’t the shock or surprise I thought it would be. It also didn’t prompt the emotional upheaval I expected. More like another nail on an already nailed coffin. And it makes me sad, but not devastated. I think that I know her helps. That she is so differently prioritized than me. I don’t know her well and it’s been a very long time since I’ve even been in the same space as her and perhaps she’s changed. But I believe she is quite the 180 from me. And, helpfully, she’s someone I’d never want to be. I don’t mean that as harshly as it sounds, I just simply mean I don’t believe she and I share aspirations. I was scared it would be someone cool, whose values I share but they live it better, who, independently of you, I would wish I was more like. I am a bit disappointed in having to recognize myself as just part of a pattern of serial monogamy. I am a bit disappointed in you that you didn’t give yourself more time, try something truly new. But, then again, after Greg died I didn’t date for years and that was right for me, I needed that time to heal and give myself unadulterated priority. And it’s exactly what I’m doing now, so I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that you are also following your pattern. I guess I’d just hoped for better from you. But in a way it’s a relief. If you leaving was about everything I like about myself, then fine, those are the parts I have no interest in changing. I have been waiting some emotional weight to drop, a little scared that perhaps I’ve just been in shock, but it hasn’t come. I think even that makes me sad. I hate how much I miss you without even wanting you back, just this ache.
Fran and I met a dog in Bacalar. We named it Huevos. It would’ve been Spencer. But Spencer nevermore. This was my first new place since you. You and I would’ve gotten bikes. I would’ve dragged you in a kayak at the crack of dawn to watch the sunrise, you would’ve somehow found live music in this sleepy town. We would’ve eaten street food. We would’ve found a lost cenote, only swam off public docks, climbed a ruin, and stayed right in town and walked and walked and walked and gotten oh so muddy. I got stuck working some and was allergic and stuffed up, so perhaps not the best comparison. I want so badly to be over you. This hurts and it sucks and I’m trying all the things, allow myself to feel, work through my emotions, but also try new things, meet new people, notice joy, explore myself as I am now. And I just can’t seem to make it go any quicker. So maybe it just feels unfair that you have a girlfriend. But so far, the most vengeful I’ve been able to get is to hope that you want to know what type of tree is in front of you and then you’ll miss me. Revenge indeed.
And definitely time for a get away.
Bacalar is a land of pirates and birds and a gentle wind negating the day’s heat. Making up for the lack of shore, docks extend well into the large lagoon, opening to broad decks with swings hanging into the water. The lagoon of 7 colors is deceptively named, variation stems largely from depth, but the play of the light on the water is magical. Marquesitas vendors line the zocalo at night. Bats zip overhead sucking nectar. Oblivious children clamor up and down slides. The fort is the tallest structure in the city and offers some vantage onto the lake. Long ago, pirates frequented the town, nagivating a narrow channel from the Carribbean now known as Canal de las Piratas. So the Spanish built a fort on the shore across from the canal.
Bacalar or Bakhalal (meaning place of reeds in Mayan) was founded by Mayans in 415 AD and was used predominantely as a trading center bringing goods from their cities in Guatemala and Belize down Rio Hondo into the Carribbean and then just a hop, skip and a jump up the narrow channel in the freshwater lake and from there to the rest of the Mayan world. In the mid 1500s it became one of the first cities taken by the Spanish. And then pirates. Ok, I’m very unclear on how many time pirates sacked the city and also on how much it’s played up for tourists, but it would be very hard to miss the pirate references.
Mangroves line the shores, wherever human intervention hasn’t deterred them, and at least 4 cenotes feed the lake. Unlike your classic half in a cave style cenote, these are just deep holes in the lake that connect to the river that spreads under the Yucatan. The lagoon is famed for having 7 colors, which is largely hyperbole, but due to the limestone bottom of the lake and variations in depth combined with incredible water clarity, it does appear to be multi colored and is stunning. The boat tour we took did partial justice to this, showing us 3 connected cenotes, pirate’s canal, and bird island, an off limits island /prime mating zone for migratory birds. Apparently white storks in February. This is the baby bringing stork of legend. As it turns out, they often have too many young to care for and abandon the weakest on one side of the island as their offering to vultures overhead.
But the Bacalar claim to fame is the estramatolitos, or stromatolites. Largely found in hypersaline lakes, Bacalar has a 10km long microbialite bed, rising meters from the lake floor in some places. Ok, so kinda like coral, in that they are both living, reef building critters, but stromatolites are layered sedimentary formations, generally of limestone, created by microorganisms (rather than polyps) that are much older than their coral counterparts. Most stromatolites reefs died out around 11,000 years ago. Signs everywhere advise against sunscreen and in no uncertain terms warn against touching or stepping upon stromatolites. Given that they bear a strong resemblance to rocks, this is more challenging that one might think. At the south end, the lagoon narrows and forms an area known as Los Rapidos, where a gentle, but consistent current surrounded by stromatolites, takes you downstream, then you exit and race back up to the top for another ride.
I got up early one morning and headed down to the ecological park, missing sunrise, but walking through mangroves with early morning birds and clouds and relative lack of crowds, and it was lovely and peaceful. Had myself a mini meditate and a mini cry and felt a bit renewed.
I remain fascinated but also permanently annoyed by mangroves. I never see a jaguar, though I’m told this is their favorite environment, nor have I seen an alligator sliding over them, a manatee hiding under or a toucan nest. They interrupt my favorite waterside environment of white soft sand and they create a mucky flooring. But I find them irresistably romantic and the idea of floating through narrow channels of a surplus of untouched nature, lifting vines, spying exotic birds and small hiding mammals, well, it just inherently appeals.
I am either getting sick or was allergic to something in Bacalar, but unfortunately therefore spent a fair amount of the trip stuffed up. Coming into Mexico City, I kept asking myself “does it feel like home yet?” What makes somewhere home? Is it roots laid? A sense of comfort? Familiarity? Friends? Family? I think I don’t have one right now. And while some part of cherishes this lightness, part of me thinks chimes in that I’m too old for this. I bought plants and art here. I put it up on walls and greenified my space. I’m not sure it matters if it I’d just left it barebone. It’s funny cause I spent time thinking “don’t rush, don’t decide what you want. Be rootless. Don’t decide who you are with stuff like measuring cups.” And I think I tried to root a bit more than I meant to, but it doesn’t appear to have taken and I think it’s more the time than the place.
Year One Project 
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