South Padre Island with its soothing feel and leisurely coastal vibe is as good a place as any to start over again.

It has been that and more for two massage therapists who came to the Island years ago after divorces required them to start anew. Pippa Brooks tells of coming to South Padre in 2008 with nothing. Fellow therapist Mina Amesquita recalls getting to SPI “with $60 in my pocket” about a year earlier.

What each woman had was determination and a skill they clung to when they had little else. 

“I never let my license lapse, thank God,” Brooks said of her state authorization for massage therapy. 

Amesquita had worked as a certified nursing assistant and then a chiropractic technician. She went a step further and became a state licensed massage therapist. Her first places to try her new craft were Port Isabel and then South Padre Island.

“Go start your new life,” Amesquita recalled a friend telling her when relocating to the coast.

Both women did just that and years later, they made it through their trials and tribulations to establish successful practices. It includes their own Island offices and the mobility to go anywhere to see clients relying on their therapy treatments.

“This is what I was born to do,” said Amesquita, who also possesses a state license.

Brooks from her place of business on Padre Boulevard speaks of gratitude for how far she’s come.

“I had to get back to work and knuckle down,” Brooks said. “My clientele is brilliant. I’m so happy with what I’ve got.”

Finding Their Homes

The backgrounds of the two therapists could hardly be different.

Amesquita is a native of Zapata and was a high school dropout before overcoming that shortfall later after her divorce. Brooks is a Brit by way of Houston who came to the United States as a teenager. She traveled many roads before settling in the SPI/Laguna Vista area. Their respective ways to recovery and healing brought them far south to the Island, where they felt welcome. They laud the coastal communities for their support.

“The people here are amazing,” Amesquita said. “This is where I came to find my way.”

Brooks came to the Island to find calm after the storm. Hurricane Dolly had just passed through the area in 2008. She came down south to see how her mother and stepfather had fared with their bed-and-breakfast business post-Dolly. Fresh off her divorce, she decided to stay and rekindled her massage therapist skills she had honed for years in Houston.

For Amesquita and Brooks, they both had years of working for established spas and massage therapist offices on the Island and in Port Isabel. Eventually, they each set out on their own. Now there’s Massage by Mina on the 5200 block of Padre Boulevard. A few blocks south of Mina’s is Massage by Pippa on 3400 Padre Boulevard.

“Deciding to work for yourself will always work out,” Brooks said. “I could never work for anyone else again.”

Staying Busy

Mina’s massage room is cool and serene with enough light for a client to drift into relaxation in receiving a healing treatment.

Lemongrass scents are in the air. Amesquita sees a wide range of clients, from the older set dealing with arthritis to the athletes and wind surfers recovering from the aches and pains of practices and competitions. Referrals from doctors and chiropractors to go with her longtime clients keeps her busy.

“My book is always full,” she said.

Brooks can say the same. Winter Texans are frequent clients this time of year and she enjoys going mobile with her massage tables and equipment, going all over the Rio Grande Valley as well as outdoor massages at Isla Grand Beach Resort.

“I’m all about quality over quantity at this stage of the game,” Brooks said. 

Amesquita, meanwhile, went back years ago to Zapata to get her high school diploma. She sensed a judge in a custody case with her ex-husband had literally and figuratively looked down on her as a dropout.

“As a woman, it built me up to not be seen like that again,” she said.

It’s about recovery and redemption, the building back of lives, and practicing a skill sought by many and at levels they can deliver after years of experience. Amesquita and Brooks have each made it as successful businesswomen.

“I love doing it, and for me, it’s not work at all,” said Brooks, in a comment that could just as well be said by her colleague down Padre Boulevard.