Her Name is Alice

January 16, 2024

I could feel it when I pulled in that this would be no ordinary visit to the bead store. I was in Terlingua, Texas. If you’ve never been, it’s one of those edge places. A border land to Mexico. Somewhere between what was and might never be again. The wide open sky and persistent sunshine invites freedom to the body, soul, and mind.

That morning I had been sipping on a cup of coffee since dawn. Watching the sunrise above the peaks of the Chisos Mountains. Listening to the women making food for every tourist, local, traveler, straggler, and roadrunner that showed up at their door. Terlingua is a place where miracles still happen, even if it is a ghost town.

There was no open sign at the bead store. Just faded wooden letters by the highway— Big Bend Art Studio. I sat for a moment and felt heavy. This was a place where time had stopped and I could sense it immediately.

I walked up the path that led to the porch. The door was shut. It looked dark inside. There were pots filled with cactus, piles of rocks, knick knacks, art pieces, and trash. My eyes could barely take it all in. The windows were dusty. But everything is dusty in Terlingua. I was dusty and I had only just arrived.

I looked in the window and saw a cash register (also dusty) and stepped back to the door. The knob was completely black. I went to turn it and it felt stuck. Maybe it was locked, I thought. I wondered if this was my sign to leave as I tried one more time.

This time the knob turned. I peered into a dark room full of paintings, small prints, postcards, jewelry— all clearly made by the same hand and all covered in dust. I took one step inside and heard a voice calling, “Hello! Hello? I’m in here! It’s open. I can’t get up very fast.”

I stepped into the first room and walked towards the voice in the next room over. Immediately I noticed a bright light shining into this room. I would later learn that this was the only window in the whole house that didn’t have something covering it. The sunlight reached the opposite wall where there was a large mirror resting upon a stage bringing more light into the space. Three dusty microphones stood at attention. There was a tv in the corner. Multiple tables with piles of things on them. There were paintings everywhere. Finished and unfinished. Books. Boxes. Magazine. Relics from the past. Beads. Everything was everywhere. All of it was covered in dust. In the middle of it all, I finally spotted her. A woman trying to rock herself out of a rocking chair. Grey hair. Shaded glasses. Deep wrinkles. Smiling.

“I got this,” she said as she proceeded to rock herself forward and backward gaining enough momentum to launch herself into a standing position. She quite literally shuffled toward me and began speaking a million miles a minute. I could hear her words, but it was her tone that stopped me. When she spoke, it was like birdsong, the sun rising, the spring, a gentle river flowing. It was all light. It was all heavenly.

I never had a chance to speak before she started telling me her story about how it all started for her. She made portraits. She would paint people’s portraits in shopping malls all over the country. She told me she wasn’t very good at first, but she had a bit of talent for it and kept going with it. This was a time when shopping malls were for community. It was a place for people to walk around. To shop. To meet people. To eat. To see attractions.

“Malls were huge,” she explained, “and you used to be able to make a living from them, so I did. And now most of them sit empty all across America and people sit at home feeling lonely with nothing but the television to keep them company.”

She stopped speaking suddenly. We both glanced at the tv in the corner of the room.

“What are you doing here anyways?” she asked.

“I saw your sign for beads and thought I’d stop in.”

“No, no… I mean what are you doing here in Terlingua. I know why you must be here.”

So I told her what I was doing and what our plans were for the next few days.

“Ah, you are the guide then. No wonder you have that look about you. What is your name?”

“Morgan.”

“This all makes perfect sense. I’ve never had a bad time with Morgans. So you’re probably safe to show around. I’ll show you the beads I’ve got. They’re in the back. Some of them I can’t sell to you, especially if they’re the last of something I have. Some people think there’s not too much to names. What do you think?" Are Morgans on the whole what you expect them to be?”

I laughed and told her what I thought. And then for the first time, she leaned in really close and peered at me over the tops of her glasses so that I could finally see her eyes for the first time, and I imagine, the first time she could actually see mine.

“Well,” she went on. “You know all that stuff about wonderland and going down the rabbit hole?”

“Yes.”

“It’s all true. I’m Alice. Welcome to the rabbit hole.”

At this point we stepped into the next room. There was another mirror on the back wall and an old bar complete with a few torn barstools. There were piles of DVDs everywhere. Shoeboxes filled with CDs. Everything covered in dust. On the walls were paintings with red chili peppers. The walls were painted in the same chili pepper red. She said that this was the DVD room where she was starting to get organized. I pointed to the paintings, “this is also the chili pepper room.”

She looked at me. “That color red is always in my mind. I can’t escape it.”

We looked at each other for a moment before she led me into the next room. The back room. The bead room. She said I could look around here if I wanted. There were trays and trays of beads. Necklaces started and never finished. One earring here. Another there. Boxes of beads. Bags of beads. Strings of beads. All of them… covered in dust.

“Do you have cash?”

“I have a little. I honestly wasn’t sure what I to expect.”

“Well, that’s understandable. I need to get to the post office before noon today. I’m trying to send off my electricity bill before it’s too late. It’s been hard to get to the post office because of the holidays. I can’t drive anymore and everyone I know around here has been gone to see family. How about you give me a ride to the post office and then we can stop at the liquor store for some vodka and we’ll call that payment? I was supposed to have a friend come help me today, but I can’t get ahold of her this morning and I’m starting to worry about the time. I can still move around okay. I just have to be careful. Watch this.”

Without missing a beat, she began showing me her sun salutation. A beautiful forward fold. Lifting her arms towards the sky. Talking through each familiar motion. I was listening as if I had just heard it all for the very first time. This was when I discovered probably what I already knew— that this artist was also a yogi— and if I was willing to be present, I would be sure to learn something.

She asked me if I wanted a drink and before I could answer she told me she had been sipping on a little wine already that morning.

“I water it down of course. It makes it last longer. I’ve got more wine I can give you, but I also have a couple of beers back here in the kitchen. I know it’s early, but this might be the only time I ever get to see you. So, I feel a bit like celebrating with you.”

She paused.

“How do you like your beer?”

It felt like an important question. So I answered it the best I could, “I like it best on the river.”

This made her laugh. One of the brightest laughs I have ever heard. She started telling me how she likes to put hot sauce, a squeeze of lime, and a little salt in her beer. Cholula specifically. She told me to never waste my time with Tapatío.

The kitchen was in the same state as the other four rooms. Dusty. To my eye, disorganized. Every cabinet door was open revealing what was inside. Piles of dirty dishes in and around the sink. Alice begin looking around for two glasses that weren’t “too dirty” for us. She moved all around me while I stood still in awe of a painting sitting in the corner. It was still shining with wet paint— a soft pink fading into lavender as the background and a perfectly white circle at the center.

“That one is just getting started. Sometimes I paint in here because that’s where the water is. That’s a full moon. Have you ever seen a full moon rise here?” Again, she peered over the top of her glasses to look at me.

“Last year,” I said.

“Good. Then you do know.”

She turned away with two glasses in her hands, set them down at the edge of the counter, and reached for the salt. She got the Cholula out of the refrigerator and shook a fair amount into the bottom of the glasses, squeezed a fresh slice of lime, and added a dash of salt. She had me open our beers. Lone Star, of course, and warm.

“To being here,” she said as she raised her glass to mine.

We each took a drink and stood silent for a moment in time.

“Now, you have your drink. You know where the beads are. The bathroom is off the DVD room and I’m going to play some music. Did you know I am a singer?”

She sang to me right then and there. A song about being in her garden and nothing else happening except what was right there. She finished and went to put on one of her CDs and I was left to to the beads— for a moment.

It felt like months since anyone had looked at the beads. But I was in it. She found me an old chip dip tray to carry anything I wanted and then proceeded to tell me story after story about the beads she had collected over the years. There was a set of blue, white, and coral beads that felt special the moment I saw them and picked them up.

“They’re from an African trader. I saw him with a sack over his shoulder speaking very simple English at a bead store in San Antonio. I waited for him outside the store—just like the movies— and when he walked out I told him I wanted to do business with him. Afterwards, I gave him a ride to the bus station. This was before uber and cell phones— it was just more common to give someone a ride who needed it back then. If they were asking for it, there was actually a chance they needed it. Not like today. You never can really know when someone is trying to take advantage of you or put you in a place where your kindness isn’t reciprocated. So anyways, I took him to the bus station and dropped him off. I got a few miles down the road when I looked back and noticed his bag of beads still sitting. He had forgotten them. Now, there were several hundred dollars worth of beads in that bag. I know because I had bought some of them. I knew places where I could go and sell them for that much too. But I also knew that this bag was that man’s whole life. He had told me he was there with the beads made in his village to sell them for money for his family. He was recently married and soon to have a baby. Another type of person might have kept driving, but I couldn’t. I drove right back to the bus station. He gave me the biggest hug when I pulled up with his bag. His eyes filled with tears as he told me he wasn’t sure if he would see me again with that bag— and there I was. Now, Morgan, I’ll sell you some of those beads, but you can’t have all of them.”

She let me get two strands. I was lucky that she shared them with me. Along with the story which meant actually meant everything.

I listened to every word she had to tell me about her beads. I listened to her criticism of my bead choices. I listened to her criticisms of my posture. I listened to her criticisms of my clothes. She told me I should learn to make earrings because I would make more money that way and then proceeded to teach me how to make earrings, except for how to finish them. That, she told me, was something I could look up.

Eventually, her friend came and took her to the post office like she had planned. I remained with the beads. She had beads made out of wood, glass, stone, donkey hair, fabric, and sand. Handpainted. Handcarved. Some dating back to 1500 which she also purchased from the African trader. I found a bead that was a seed of a tree. I found thousands of tiny beads of every color. I opened as many boxes and tubs to pull out everything I could find and I still left so much untouched.

When Alice came back she told me that she thought about it and wanted to renegotiate our agreement. She leaned in and asked me softly if I could take her to the grocery to get her a few things in exchange for the beads. I agreed. We added up what I had picked out and I cleaned out the front seat of my car to make room for her among all the camping gear.

Before we left, she gave me a shot of brandy and told me to take a sip.

“We can finish it when we get back.”

I had to drive the car up closer to her backdoor because she couldn’t walk down the steps from the front. She only had one step this other way. She turned around backwards because she said it was easier and held onto the back of a chair placed there for this exact purpose. She stepped down and told me that sometimes going backwards was easier as she had a hip replaced a few years ago and wasn’t trying to fall again.

I drove Alice to the Cottonwood grocery store and she told me how she got the place where she is now. She talked about the town. She talked about a murder on the Rio Grande River in the 90s. She complained about the tourists and the way they built a new road. She never stopped talking and I never stopped listening.

When we got to the store, the first thing she picked up was a gallon water jug. Then a bag of mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. She explained that dried mangoes were a waste of money and passed them by. She smelled every scented candle even though she didn’t want one. She got sliced ham and cheese for sandwiches. Bread. A head of cabbage to make soup. A sweet potato. Grapefruit juice. Her final choice was a bag of plain Lays chips that she immediately opened for the car ride home, just like a little kid. Everything together came out to $53.12 and we agreed we were even.

She said hello to every person in the store. Most of them obviously knew who she was. It was also clear that she hadn’t been out in awhile. She was smiling and telling jokes. Laughing and pushing her cart along with me following. She introduced me to everyone as if we had known each other forever.

When we got back to her place, there was a family who lived in town who had stopped by to help her around the house and new customers had arrived who were hesitant to move beyond the front room. Alice began telling them the same story she told me about herself.

I hung around just long enough to finish the rest of my shot of brandy as she insisted and waited to see if she offered the new customers any. She didn’t.

Eventually she looked at me and said, “Are you still here?” And I saw tears in her eyes start to form. I gave her a hug and told her that it was about time for me to get going. She looked at me as I opened the door and laughed, “No one is ever going to understand what happened to you this afternoon.” That was the last thing she said.

I stood on her porch for a few moments looking at Alice’s view of the Chisos Mountains and the beauty that can only be found in Big Bend. Alice’s friend came to give me a hug and say “thank you”. She told me that occasionally people like me come by to look at the beads or the art and Alice will usually ask them for something other than money in exchange. She’ll ask them to go for a ride, pick up some dinner, or some other kind of errand. Anything to make her feel alive. It didn’t happen much anymore, she told me, but it was so good to see it happening today.

I think about my visit to Alice’s wonderland frequently. The dimly lit rooms. The dust. The endless stacks of DVDs. Shots of brandy. Her unmade bed tucked in one corner. Dirty dishes. All of her beautiful paintings. Her music. Her stories. Her singing. Her sun salutation. Her joy for life.

I saw myself in Alice and I think Alice saw herself in me.