Years ago when I was trying to find myself as a newly minted “baby” dyke, I attended numerous women’s only events. The Michigan Women’s Music Festival blew my mind as I spent a week camping with a few thousand women in the woods of northern Michigan. Sisters were doin’ it for themselves, and I was agog.
View of the main stage.
Locally in Austin we had weekend gatherings that I eagerly participated in. At one retreat I recall joining in for an opportunity to let my mind wander and imagine the life I’d like to create. Eyes closed we were led through a dreamlike visualization process. I came away with a clear vision of living in a community of women. I saw myself wrapped in a towel able to walk to swim. Swimming has always been important to me and a big contributing factor to picking Bacalar and this beautiful Laguna. This week I was up early and capturing the sunrise that is particularly lovely this time of year. Enjoy.
Up before dawn. Do you feel the heat from that sun?Such expressive clouds.
It was thirty-one years ago that she walked around the bar and into my life. Our friends nodded and smiled and knew it would never last. She was rough around the edges, not long out of the military. She smoked and drank and I did neither. I was twelve years older with three children. We both were still living with our exes. Not exactly a match made in heaven.
Our first Christmas 1994
And yet here we are, happier than ever, living our dream together. I’m not saying it hasn’t been work. We’ve learned to accept each other as we are, not tolerance but appreciation. There’s also the art of listening without feeling criticized and taking personal responsibility.
First Valentines Day 1995Wedding photos 1999Legal 2014
We have supported each other through major health crises, spending nights together in the hospital, even in one case, sleeping on the floor.
Back Surgery
All in all, it’s been a ride. Thirty-one years is worth celebrating. We certainly didn’t have a crystal ball that night in the bar when we laughed and flirted. If you’d have asked me if love at first sight existed I’d probably have scoffed. But ask me today, and I’d say yes, but it also takes a lot of damn work.
By the end of the week Lisa and I were spent. Preparing for a hurricane is a lot of damn work, both physical and emotional. We had help from our two workers who dug drainage ditches and filled sandbags. Driving through Bacalar, stores were closed, doorways boarded up and a long line of boats were waiting to be hauled out of the Laguna. Everyone was taking Beryl’s threat very seriously.
“X” marks the spot. Beryl turned North.
In August of 2007 Hurricane Dean made landfall near Bacalar as a category five. Many locals lived through and remember well the damage and months of cleanup. Lisa and I moved to Bacalar in 2013, six years post Dean. The devastation was still a frequent topic of conversation round the ol tequila bottle.
Dean over Bacalar
In 2007 people did not have the predictive technology that we have today. The downside of monitoring the hourly progress of a monster is the tension and stress it brings. Beryl ended up making landfall hours north of us. We got cooler temperatures (yeah) and almost no other storm results.
I’m glad we were as prepared as we could be, but no distraction provided peace of mind while we waited. The day after the “storm” found both of us prostrate with fatigue. We didn’t expect that!
Bacalar is beautiful. Our house is a work of art. For ten years we have invited friends and family and shown pictures to entice them to visit. Our motivation has been as much to share this place as it is to see people. Very few have taken us up on the invitation. Maybe one visitor per year for the last ten years. We have been the ones to do the traveling, to Texas, California and Florida.
Laguna Bacalar from our dock.
In October Lisa’s aunt came for two months. Aunt Linda stays with Alice and is no trouble. She is however another person for dinner and the shopping is non stop. The sisters are a duo, heads together, talking old times. They’re like a pair of magpies.
Sisters Linda and Alice and Lisa at the beach in Mahahual.
I dropped Linda at the airport for her return to California and picked up our friends Dan and Lisa. We had a fun-filled two weeks. We dropped them back at the airport and picked up my brother. In the middle of my brother’s visit was Lisa’s 60th birthday.
A small gathering of good friends was a delight.
We have been tour guides, chefs, chauffeurs and entertainers. Nothing makes you appreciate routine like non-stop activity.
So grateful to have my brother visit. At the Mayan Cultural Museum.
Don’t get me wrong, we have enjoyed every minute. No complaints. Next time however I think we will work on the timing. You’re all welcome to visit, just not at the same time.
Twenty-eight years for a lesbian relationship is like a hundred years for everyone else. The bookies taking bets on us would have lost money big time.
Lisa – twelve years my junior. Former smoker, drinker, X-military. She just started college in 1994.
Me – mom to three children, still sharing a house and co-parenting with my X-husband. I just started graduate school in 1994.
Our first Valentine’s. We were so young! 1997
We met at “the bar”. For you younger folks, back in the day, gay bars were how we all met. At one time there were actually three lesbian bars in Austin, Chances, Nexus and About Time! Unfortunately they have gone the way of the very extinct dodo bird.
In 1999, we had a backyard commitment ceremony after five years and the purchase of a house. Nothing says commitment like buying a house together.
It’s all about the cake!Sharing a private moment.
In 2015 marriage became legal in all 50 US states. We had a small ceremony and made it legal in California. In case you lost count, that gives us three anniversary dates (and two honeymoons).
Our daughter planned and executed this memorable event.
As we can barely remember what day it is, we have always celebrated the day we met, September 16, 1994. It’s been a wild ride and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
For those of you who aren’t familiar, the two-step is a dance frequently performed at a country western bar in boots and cowboy hat. Back in the day, it’s where I met my Sweetie, twenty-seven years ago this week. No one would have put money on us, yet here we are.
Gay bars in the 90s.
These days, the only dance we’re doing is to avoid Covid infection while traveling in the U.S. One, two cha cha cha.
Pharmacy shelves are empty.
Rapid home tests are as elusive as the proverbial needle in a haystack. I believe folks have boxes at home next to stockpiled toilet paper. My daughter orders rapid tests online at 4am when supplies come in and sell out quickly.
Last week we got news that my former sister-in-law succumbed to conspiracy theories and vaccine avoidance. There are so many sad stories of needless death, it’s difficult to turn on the news. RIP Val.
Fingers crossed that we get to talk to the surgeon this week and schedule Lisa’s spinal fusion. It’s been another one of those dances, slow, slow, quick, quick.
At least I can share photos of our pups who are doing well at home in Bacalar under the care of our house sitters. Enjoy.
Luna enjoying a hot stone bath.Stela harassing my MILs cat.
Whenever I come across something that gives me a good belly laugh, I have to share it with my partner. But when it’s a fall off the couch, tears and snot guffaw-fest, it has to go on the Dos Tortas blog.
This week we watched Cloudburst with Olympia Dukakis on Netflix. I began by not paying much attention but was soon completely riveted. I’ll surely go back and watch it again. The zingers were flying fast and furious and absolutely hilarious.
The fact that this movie came out in 2002, before lesbians could legally marry in the US, means that I am waaaay behind the times in my movie watching. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
I remember when the movie Silence Of The Lambs came out in 1991. It starred Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, who both won Academy Awards and overall best picture. I was probably the only person who found the movie horrifying, I could not watch, averted my eyes and walked out of the theater. I argued with friends who declared it a “great movie”. How could a movie about kidnapping, torture and wearing the skin of a woman be great? Subject matter vs cinematography.
This week I watched a Netflix movie that popped up on my feed, Dance of the Forty-One. In its own way, it was equally hard to watch, but not for the same reason. Dance of the Forty-One is a based-on-reality, Mexican movie by award winning director David Pablos about the repression of gay men in 1901 under the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. To my surprise, it was dubbed well in English not subtitled.
The movie is beautiful and moving. The love scenes are steamy and visceral. It is filmed in Mexico City and Guadalajara and transports the viewer to what Mexico was like in all its elegance and grandeur at the turn of the century. However if you know even a smattering of Mexican history and the cruelty of Porfirio Diez, you know it’s not going to end well.
Lisa and I have lived in Mexico almost eight years. One of our concerns before moving was of course, how we would be treated as a lesbian couple, aka Dos Tortas. While there has been the occasional “are you sisters?” for the most part, we are treated respectfully. One time a waiter was flirting hard with Lisa who of course was clueless. He leaned over and whispered in my ear asking me about her. I declared that she was my esposa. He turned red, sputtered, delivered the check, and disappeared. The more common term in Spanish is partner or pareja, but I was feeling particularly evil that day.
2019 in the Texas bluebonnets.
I don’t kid myself that life for Mexican lesbians is the same as for foreigners. We have friends who are a mixed couple, US’er and Mexican. They have been together many years, attending family functions and living in Bacalar down the street from Sola’s conservative family. Their relationship has never been acknowledged. It is a non-topic, period, end of story. In this case, silence is not golden.
Mexico continues to grow in acceptance and discrimination has been outlawed. Same-sex marriage is legal in all thirty-one states. Gracias to David Pablos for shining a light on a dark time in history. As hard as it is to watch, let’s not avert our eyes this time.
Dear Followers, Friends and Family, this will be my last blog post. I have been toying with the idea of discontinuing DOS TORTAS for sometime and the decision is final. With over six years, 310 posts, 5,848 views from all over the world, 195 likes, and 341 followers, it’s been a wonderful experience and a lot of fun. I’ve grown as a writer and pushed myself in ways that I wouldn’t otherwise have grown. I remember being thrilled at having 100 followers, woohoo!
Our original route from Austin to Bacalar September 2013
There are so many blogs about moving, traveling and living in Mexico. I have veered off topic quite a bit lately which is death for a blogger. Any “how to” guide will tell you to be narrow in topic and write to a specific audience. I’m afraid that ship has sailed.
A few things we have learned on this great adventure:
Living in Mexico is not easy. There is a gaping cultural divide. It is not insurmountable but there is a price.
Living in a gated expatriate community is not living in Mexico.
If you don’t speak Spanish you better have money to pay someone to help navigate a system that is frustrating and complicated at best and incomprehensible at worst – renting, construction/renovation, banking, immigration, shopping, medical, veterinary, etc. etc.
Air travel back and forth from Mexico to wherever has only gotten more problematic. The easy travel that we imagined no longer exists. Missed connections, flight delays due to bad weather, the cost of rescheduling tickets and the unexpected need for a hotel room adds up. Not to mention the inconvenience of lost passports, credit cards and other identification.
Be fearless no matter where life takes you. It’s so much better than the alternative.
My hard won permanent residency card.
None of this is said to discourage anyone. We love it here in Bacalar and have no regrets or plans to return to the US. Even at 55 and 66 we talk more frequently about aging in place. Illness and disability are probably the main reasons foreigners pack it in and head “home”. Life can turn on a dime. It’s good to have a plan B.
Lisa’s mother’s tumble which resulted in multiple broken bones, surgery and physical therapy.
I would still love to hear from you with questions or comments. I will continue on Instagram at dos_tortas. With much gratitude, blessings and peace.
Today is my last day in California. I feel like I helped get these babies off to a good start, which was my goal. My son-in-law is having back surgery next month and my daughter is healing from PPCM, postpartum cardiomyopathy. They have additional family members coming after we leave. Send prayers.
Dad with the girls, Analise and Sara.
What an exhausting and rewarding experience. I am a bit at a loss for words. It’s time to get home to Bacalar. Lisa’s immigration is due and I am off to paint again for a week in Oaxaca, a commitment I wish I hadn’t made.
Doctor Max
This morning I went to church and found myself in tears thinking of the families in Pittsburgh who were themselves sitting in prayer unprepared for someone to attack their synagogue.
Our bundles of joy.
And then there was the news story of an 18 year old who drove three and a half hours one way to deliver a favorite pizza to a man in hospice dying of cancer. Acts of kindness are all we really have. Be generous and compassionate, especially to people who are different from you.
the adventures of dos tortas 
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