Michael Martone
Asheville
1994
I never learned to drink coffee, and never had a cup of coffee until that summer in Asheville. We were sitting outdoors at a coffee shop on Pack Square. I was looking to order my usual at a coffee shop, a lemonade or sparkling water. Andrea Barrett could not believe I had never had a coffee. I told her about never learning to drink it in college, about not really liking hot drinks. She proposed an experiment. Try a coffee. I can't remember why I said okay, but I said okay. I even ordered an espresso. Andrea along with Debra Spark and Judith Grossman watched me as I sipped. I had never felt my heart before. And I told them that: I am feeling my heart for the first time. Later, after I returned home, Andrea sent me a package of smooth stone fragments, chips covered with bright lichen, and a note that said these were an interesting group of crustose lichen called "script" lichens Graphis scripta that have spore structures that look like writing. "The lirellae look like scribbles on the thallus . . ." said the hand-written note.