Last week was the much awaited Rendezvous, watercolor painting in Mérida, Mexico. Besides the five finished paintings I had committed to, I had one other goal for the week, to watch the half time Super Bowl show ie, Bad Bunny.
El Gran Santiago Restaurant and Bar
To be clear, I am not a music person. When Lady Gaga showed up on the screen of the sweet little neighborhood bar down the street, I didn’t know who she was at first. I know, don’t stone me. I did know Ricky Martin immediately.
I was intent on listening to the music but the mostly non-Mexican bar patrons, WOULDN’T SHUT UP.
The only painting I sold.
I realized that they weren’t any different from folks I’ve spoken to in the States, the only history is OUR history, the only music is what I like and understand, and the only culture is white US culture (whatever that is).
Sunrise behind Santiago church.
Because of my algorithms, I have since learned about the history of Puerto Rico and how Benito (BB) schooled us on the world’s biggest stage. What an amazing show of unity and love.
I also found out that Benito wore a bullet proof vest to the Grammy’s and had a hospital-on-wheels parked outside “just in case.”
The AIDS activists of the 1980’s coined the motto Silence=Death to protest the government’s non-response to thousands of gay men dying of an unknown disease, HIV.
It wasn’t until I went to work for the City of Austin Health Department that I paid much attention. When my job was testing anyone and everyone and later giving out HIV results both negative and positive, that I was really aware of the crisis. I once gave positive results to a pregnant woman who didn’t speak English. I probably wasn’t the best person for the job but I was it.
More marching in the 90’s weren’t we cute?
This week I’m seeing influencers of all stripes, comedians, chefs, artists, exercise trainers, dancers and athletes etc speaking out against the horror that is going on in Minnesota USA. Silence surely equals death. The pressure is on not to stay quiet.
Lisa and I could not have predicted any of it, but we knew long ago that we did not want to live in the US. I feel guilty for not protesting or being able to take action. After all, I’m an old hippy who marched in New York City with thousands, protesting the Vietnam War.
Diversion Equity Inclusion
My effort to do our part has been awareness of political contributions by various companies to Trump and refusing to give them a nickel, including Amazon, Whole Foods, Target, and Home Depot. It’s time to put our money where our mouth is, so to speak. I know it’s not a lot but every bit helps, at least I’d like to think so.
A veterans hospital nurse who tried to help.
So this is Dos Tortas not being silent. I’m sorry it took two white people being killed for people to take to the streets. Here in Mexico we have met numerous people who were evicted or self deported. Their lives have been turned upside down. Some have no family, and don’t speak Spanish. Others like us are relieved to be away from the chaos.
Please look around your sphere of influence. Speak up or at least get to know your neighbors. Let’s do what we can to put a stop to it. We owe it to future generations.
I have always been a creative of one sort or another. I’ve crocheted hats, knitted socks, doodled, quilted, painted, gardened, baked, sewn clothes, danced, kept a diary and written this blog.
Baby socks I made for no particular reason.
And still I tend to think of my art as secondary, inconsequential, and not terribly important. When in fact it is who I am.
Texas Star, A gift for my mother-in-law that was returned to me when she died.
While recently in Austin I got to see lithographs by Salvador Dali priced at six figures. Some of his drawings don’t look that much different from mine. Maybe you have to be dead to have your art appreciated.
Visiting the Salvador Dali exhibit with my niece.
And then this TED Talk by Amie McNee came across my screen. The Case For Making Art When The World Is On Fire. None of us would argue against the world being on fire, but make art? That seems like fiddling on the Titanic.
One of my wilder creations.
My suggestion is to take the time to listen to her passionate message. It has made me committed to putting down the phone and iPad. This week I dusted off and tuned the ukulele I HAD to have and has sat in a corner for too many years. Perhaps struggling to play it is just what this old brain needs.
Dusted and tuned.
Next week I will be in Merida, Yucatan, for five days, watercolor painting on site around the city with a group of fellow artists. I remember how scared I was the first time I joined this group. There was a wide range of talent, including one woman who had never picked up a paint brush in her life. Her fearlessness inspired me.
I am visiting the States and staying with dear friends Isa and Laird in Austin. When they say “welcome home” they mean it.
Isa and I shared a tiny office at the Health Department many years ago. People told me to be “careful.” She’s difficult and hard to get along with. I found out later that they were telling her the same thing about me.
Yet we hit it off fabulously. We once closed the office door in the afternoon and danced to Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie and laughed until we cried. It is still our song.
I did the Heimlich Maneuver on her one day when she was choking on a carrot. She tells everyone that I saved her life.
I can’t count how many times we’ve stayed at their home. Lisa stayed for months after neck surgery. She helped Isa prepare for their exploratory trip to Costa Rica before Covid.
I was here to hold Isa’s hand while she cried over Laird’s early-onset alzheimers diagnosis.
They have visited us in Mexico, stayed in our home and sat naked on the dock in the sun.
I love being in their home, surrounded by pictures of their grandchildren. They don’t fuss. I am always welcome. Laird’s bearhug is the same although I don’t always know if he knows who I am.
Family
I am truly blessed to have these people in my life. They are our family, no strings attached, which is the best kind to have.
When I lived in Central Mexico in the seventies, a friend lived upstairs over… I don’t even know what to call it, a bread production company. At his invitation we dragged ourselves up before dawn to visit the bakery where traditional Mexican rolls, bolillos were made.
There was a huge rounded brick oven where bread was baking. Heavenly rolls, pillowy on the inside, crisp on the outside. They are cousins to the French baguette, left over from the French invasion of Mexico in 1838. The fragrance was swoon-worthy.
Several men in white aprons stood at a table where golfball-sized rolls of dough were already lined up, clearly this was an all-night job
Here was where the magic came in. With each hand they grabbed a ball of dough. Two dowels, like miniature rolling pins rapidly flattened the dough. One side was crimped toward the center, flip, crimp, voila, an ambidextrous miracle. The dough was set on long trays and popped into the wood burning oven. At five am, they melted in our mouths.
The bakers encouraged us to try their two handed roll and crimp.The results had them rolling with laughter. They made it look so easy. We looked foolish.
Coming to Bacalar, I eagerly looked for bolillos. There wasn’t even a bakery in 2013. Today a poor facsimile is sold, mostly used for tortas or sandwiches. They’re not even crispy!
$.15 cheap and filling.
The bolillos of my youth are still sold in Mexico City and thereabouts. Mostly mass-produced with highly processed flour, they leave much to be desired.
This past week, a British chef in Mexico City made a disparaging remark about Mexico’s “bread culture”. Dear God did a shit-storm ensue. Chilangos (from Mexico City) are very sensitive to the “gringo invasion” and how it’s changing traditional culture, food and dress.
The bottom line was that yes, the poor quality of Mexican bread needs to be addressed but NOT by foreigners.
Here in Bacalar we have a friend who has a delightful restaurant, Madre Masa or Mother Corn. Reading the room, they began adding pastries to the menu and then large loaves of sourdough bread. I am a huge fan, buying enough to ensure they never go out of business.
My daily breakfast.
Back in the day I used to make my own bread. Those days are long gone.
So are we part of the gringo invasion? Yes and no. We’ve lived in Bacalar twelve and a half years. We speak Spanish, contribute to the economy and pay taxes.
Madre Masa is always hopping.
MadreMasa caters to tourists, many from Mexico City who also buy sour dough bread. Yes, the culture is changing. In my opinion it is due to wealth acquisition and an ever changing global population. It’s easy to blame foreigners but there’s a much larger conversation that needs to take place with respect and kindness. For now I will continue to enjoy sourdough bread with no guilt or apology.
Making eggnog is a true labor of love. Separate the eggs and whip the whites until they form perfect peaks. Beating egg whites was always accompanied by the story of how my grandmother used to achieve perfection using only a fork and willpower. Her forearm must have rivaled an Olympic weightlifter.
Nan on her 81st birthday wearing a wig because she hated her thinning hair. She lived just shy of 95.
Next came the heavy cream, again beat into submission. Vanilla, nutmeg, all came together in Mom’s glass punch bowl, only used for the heavenly concoction.
My grandfather who asked us to call him Uncle Ed so his coworkers wouldn’t know he was a grandfather.
Christmas dinner brought family together. My grandmother and Jewish grandfather were long divorced, but that didn’t keep them from both showing up. My grandfather’s sister, Aunt Tillie was a favorite guest as well. Uncle Jack made a foursome and the folding table was brought out for a raucous game of poker, complete with trash talk and accusations of cheating.
Uncle Jack lived to be 100. His daily drink of Jack Daniel’s never slowed him down.
Mom proudly presented the “perfectly chilled” eggnog, high cholesterol in a glass. When no one was looking, my dear uncle brought out his flask and dumped the contents into the eggnog. Of course this meant that the children could not partake, not to mention that neither of my parents drank.
Mom and I dancing in my kitchen.
I’ve never seen my mother so angry, and that’s saying something. Lightening was flashing from her eyes. I think if she could have gotten away with it, there would have been a Christmas Murder that year. Ah, siblings.
I invite you to whip up this delectable treat. Feel free to empty your flask, but only in your own glass, please. You’ll never drink store-bought again.
When writing about siblings last week, I remembered that this week is the twenty-fifth anniversary of my brother’s death from brain cancer. I thought I’d repost a blog I wrote earlier this year and take a week off.
The archeological site of Palenque is one of the most magnificent in Mexico. The Mayan astronomers built towers to observe and record the night sky in 400 AD or thereabouts. I can’t imagine what the night sky must have been like then.
From my visit in 1974A time before you paid a fee to enter, before parking lots, tour guides and gift shops.
Lisa and I visited Palenque again in 2015 when we brought her mom to live with us in Bacalar.
Waterfalls near the pyramids.
This time, we did not climb the pyramids, but stumbled upon one of the highlights of our two-week trip, Aluxes Ecopark.
As always, YouTube shows off the animals way better than all my photographs.
The park breeds and releases guacamayas (red tailed macaws), helping to protect and grow their population.
Maybe it was the day we were there, but this out of the way animal reserve provided us with the relaxing day we were looking for. Shaded walking paths and benches allowed us to commune with nature as best as we could.
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.
Two weeks ago I exchanged text messages with my sister-in-law and somehow the conversation went off the rails. She was angry, and probably didn’t appreciate me pointing it out to her LOL. I tried calling, thinking a conversation could clear up the misunderstanding. She did not answer and told me to “back off!”
My brother and I talk every weekend. It is an important relationship to me and I thought to him as well. It is now two weeks that he hasn’t taken my calls. This from the person who told me that if there is a problem, “people just need to talk it out.”
My mom surrounded by cousins and my brother.
I remember as a kid, going with my grandmother to visit her sister. They hadn’t spoken in years, long after either one of them remembered why. When my great aunt answered the door, there was a moment of, “what do YOU want?“ before they fell into each other’s arms with tears and mutual apologies.
My dynamo grandmother.
I don’t know what happened with my SIL. And I REALLY don’t know why my brother has gone silent. I have been sad and confused. I am far from perfect and if I say something hurtful or stupid, let’s talk it out.
At the same time, I will not let anyone steal my peace. As of today, I am done with the tears. If I have to, I will get on a plane and knock on their door. I don’t know how our relationships got to be so fragile. Maybe by the time this gets posted everything will be worked out. Fingers crossed.
DOS TORTAS
Addendum…I spoke with my brother today. I won’t go into details, but it was apparently a big misunderstanding on my part. While I don’t buy it, I’m willing to drop the subject. Such weird times we live in.
the adventures of dos tortas 
Share Your Thoughts