Musings on metrics, acceptance, and the digestive tract

I wanted to be riding 91 kilometers and climbing over 1,000 meters (!! Translates to 0.6 of a mile of direct vertical) elevation right now. 

But I am sitting still, here in San Cristobal, eating a grateful breakfast while writing this. Staying here was not by design, although this city is beautiful and with door-to-door excuisite eateries and reverent coffee shops. (Writing about not having enough stomachs for all the beautiful salads, moles, soups, and tamales, is a different story) 

Not only a beautiful breakfast just now, but a beautiful location, off the beaten path in San Cristobal and undisturbed by the many people trying to sell me a bracelet or a scarf

Two nights ago I was once again lunging for the ivory thrown. There is nothing both as horrifying and relieving as a good chunder, but let me tell you, the nose is no place for stomach acid. The digestive system is so integral to a body, and the next day I felt the murmuring aftershocks of a fever, aching legs, weariness. 

If you know me, I live in a high-octane way, with so much energy and eagerness for life. Go!, see!, do!, be! When I do get sick, however, I am just astounded by how completely unmotivated and zestless I become. Who IS this person, anymore?  Feeling this is both frightening--I will indeed encounter more illnesses and complications as I grow older--and inducing of compassion--some people suffer with feeling ill and zestless every single day. 

Yesterday I slept the sleep of a petrified rock, and read on my palmtop. There is so much to LEARN here: about amber and copal (the resins of trees used as jewelry or as incense in ancient Mayan ceremonies), about the pine forests which are native and all over Chiapas, about the Tren de la Muerte (the cargo lines that immigrants from Guatamala and Honduras ride on top of to the border and the terrible injustices they suffer), about the neighboring indigenous villages and their customs (catholicism mixed unquestioningly with ancient religions), about the cultural significance of the stirring sticks used to make chocolate (did you know that hot chocolate has been a reverent drink for thousands of years in the Latin American cultures, but only recently has been eaten?), that for the Chamulan peoples drinking Coca cola is part of their ceremonies now (because the soft drinks initiate burping, which is really evil spirits exiting the body), about the ideologies of the Zapatistas and the 1994 uprising (indigenous land rights that were wiped out after the 1994 signing of the NAFTA agreement and the talks between the government and the Zapatistas, initiated by the Catholic Church to try to regain peace). 

Yesterday, in my weary and pathetic state, the high was eating food--a hot tamal with green mole, a papaya yogurt smoothie, little round corn disks topped with fresh beet and carrot--and having it all stay within me where it belonged. The high of most days in Southern Mexico is indeed eating food. But for me, yesterday, it was the only high. 

Senior Tamales serves me one, hot and steaming, from his doorway

I could slip into a dark and grumpy place: that I have come all this way, and have such little time here, and there is so much to see, so much to EXPERIENCE, and here I am tamped down by something stupid in my digestive system?! But really: feeling that negativity is pointless. I could be sick AND grumpy, or I could be sick and accepting. The latter is lighter and easier. 

Kathy, this wise woman exactly twice my age, my travel companion (with whom my mother was once appalled to hear I would be traveling, a stranger!; but I know my mother would now adore this woman for how she has, well, been the wise mother for me, when needed, on this journey), this morning suggested that we not push today to ride out (towards our next distant destination of Ocosinco on the way to Palenque), that we stay one more day in San Cristobal to let my system reacclimate, and do a walking tour, ride to a nearby indigenous village, eat some more incredible food. 

Which is better?  a) Believing oneself to be invincible and setting out to test that and perhaps failing halfway out (and up) and flagging down a truck--or finishing successfully with a triumphant ego boost? Or, b) protecting oneself from the possible drastic highs or lows and resting and "playing it safe"? 

I would tell a friend who I loved, if she were in my condition: "rest, wait!, get 110% well, then go." Why don't I tell this to my own self? 

Am I assessing the quality of my trip by some arbitrary metric of how many kilometers I rode? Is that like measuring the success of a love relationship by how long it lasted? Might it be better to measure the success of something by how I FEEL and what I EXPERIENCE along the way and what I LEARN, no matter how long or short? 

(If I used the metric of 'Number of Beautifully Handcrafted Earrings Bought for $2', this trip would be exceptional. And they're not all for me! Girlfriends: you're gonna get lucky when I get back.)

In the positive light, my knees are under my command again. I knew this, because about a week ago I was chased by two terrible dogs, snarling, flat out for my spinning ankles. I rammed on the pedals and roared back at them and threw the rocks I'd prepared on my handlebar bag. It took a tremendous sprint to outrun those buggers, but I did, and my knees held true. 

I _hate_ being chased by dogs. I carry pepper spray but that day I'd forgotten it. 

Prepared for dogs on the day I forgot my pepper spray in the hotel

Yesterday, after my dinner of rich hydrating soup, I received a little bar of chocolate from my restaurant. On the wrapper it said, in English: "May we be happy. May we be healthy. May we be light today." 

May I be light today. What more important message to receive at this point.