4/13/25 Back in the saddle

I summoned the energy to combat the sads.
I signed up for Bumble BFF
I have lots of plans – next weekend it’s Xochimilco kayaking one morning & a hike the next day
The weekend after, it’s Fran’s bday in San Jose del Cabo
After that I get my tattoo finished, so maybe a down weekend or gentle hike
Then I need plans. I’m thinking that might involve a hike
and then Portland

Further lessons in Spanish. The cost of a potato in the US may be identical to the cost of a bag of potatoes and therefore may lead one to purchase too many potatoes. We will be making gnocchi this week…

AND WE BROUGHT BACK A DIREWOLF?
Also, direwolves are real? or were real? I’m not really sure what verb tense we should go with here. If you aren’t up on this, a company named Colossal Biosciences, a genetics company dedicated to “de extinction” claims to have brought the direwolf back by modifying the DNA of grey wolf, it’s closest living relative, to match genetic material found in fossils and bone. I also personally have my doubts about this company cause they named their three adorable white cubs Remus, Romulus, and Khaleesi. These have nothing to do with each other. Although I did read that George RR Martin is an investor, so maybe there’s an explanation for the Khaleesi nod.

But also WTF. Have you seen Jurassic World? Isn’t there more helpful genetic research that could be done? Like supporting endangered species or curing disease?
More interestingly, is it a direwolf? What is “de-extinction”? This is mostly a grey wolf which shares 99.5% of the DNA with a direwolf. Comparatively, though, we share 98.6% with chimpanzees. They extracted DNA from 2 different fossils and compiled 2 genome sequences. They made 20 edits to 14 genes (out of like 19,000) to reengineer the core traits that the extinct species had to reproduce the phenotype. It’s fascinating. Is it a direwolf? Are we rejecting “looks like a duck, talks like a duck”? What, then, would make something a direwolf? Pure, complete genetic extraction only? Is a matter of percentage?

Regardless, they are freakin’ cute and Leo likes to watch the video of them taking little puppy howls.

Friday I cooked. Like really cooked. I made the gnocchi. Went to the fancier mercado to find heirloom tomatoes and Italian basil. Browned some pine nuts. Made a salad, made a salad dressing. Bought edible flowers. Checked out this ceramics store that I’d heard about and now own a two platters.

Fran has a lovely group of women friends, mostly Colombian, and a bunch of them came over and we just ate. It’s a group I’ve struggled to find my place in, and I’m unclear on whether it’s that I’m new to an established group, the slang (literally no familiarity with Colombian), different interests, etc, but they are welcoming and lovely women. And actually I think Paula and I kinda clicked at this dinner. She got excited about marscapone on top of her dumplings and I was her fellow advocate for scuba on our upcoming trip.

Saturday, I got dirty. Went on a lovely hike through Cañada Nexpayantla , a stunning canyon located about an hour and half southeast of the city in the Parque Nacional de Iztaccihuatl-Popocatepetl. It’s hidden a bit on one side of the forest surrounding Popocatépetl, a highly active volcano that has eruptions yearly, not usually prompting evacuations, but definitely cancelling some flights. Due to this activity, climbing is prohibited. But it’s the neighbor to Iztaccihuatl, who I do have my eye on and this was closest I’ve gotten to either.

The trail follows a “river” (granted, it’s the dry season, but I’m pretty sure we’d call it a creek) through a basin which alternated between tree covered hillsides and steep rock walls. We criss crossed the river repeatedly which was a nice relief from kicking up dust. The air felt so good. There was a breeze and it felt cleaner, reminded me a bit of the Shasta area. And then we reached the canyon. I’ve always wanted to wander through those narrow canyons of remarkable rock formation in Utah, and this is the closest I’ve come yet. it was beautiful.

We did wait them out, but unfortunately, we found a tour group at the falls on our otherwise solitary hike. A big group, maybe as much as 20 folks. On the way out we quickly caught up to them and then paused briefly to try to give ourselves some space, at which point someone pointed out that they might beat us to quesadillas at the end and we revised our strategy to book it and get ahead of them. Most of the natural spaces near Mexico City are state or federal land but often overseen by a local family, who without fail also establish a restaurant with comida casera and always have quesadillas, mostly have tlacoyos, and from there it’s a gamble. It also means service is very kind, highly disorganized and the food is remarkably slow to come out. The promise of quesadillas combined with the threat of waiting over an hour for them meant we made really good time back.

While usually vans are rented for these hikes, with this smaller group we just used folks’ cars. On the way home I rode with Liz, our fearless leader, and Jenny, an American who’s been in Mexico for about 13 years. Both of these women probably have about 10 years on me. They’re both single. Liz got divorced after 21 years of marriage 12 years ago. Eleven years ago, at age 42, she started mountaineering. Now she’s climbed giants like K2. They both echoed so much of what I sometimes feel? suspect?, that life is empowering on your own as a woman. That it’s satisfying to do what you want, to set your own goals, to take up space, but that it’s really hard to escape the taught longing for a romantic partner. They laughed about how annoying it is to have a romantic partner crowd your style, be in your space. Liz acknowledged that it just got harder to make that kind of room for someone the longer she was happily on her own.

It’s hard to suss out what all I can let go of, like this idea of a romantic partnership, and actually it’s centrality in life. It’s annoying that so many things in life are decisions that you have to make over and over. Listening to them, and what my own head & heart said anyway, is that this is not a choice you make once and are at peace with thereafter, but rather one that you wrestle with repeatedly. I’m not worried about it right now. Right now I choose me. Over and over and it’s easy, I just spent a long time not choosing me and I am not doing that again any time soon, certainly not before I have a really good grip on the me that is now. And I do just want to be so strong that I can’t hurt like this, though I know that being able to be hurt like this is kinda the point. For now, I’m finding relief in working to be physically strong as though that can manifest itself as internal strength too. Screw resilience, I’m looking to be bullet proof.