I spent 5 minutes looking at the details of that photograph — which is by Damon Winter — and thinking and talking about it with Meade. I still haven't read anything more than the words you see there, the caption — "Erik Hagerman heads out for his morning ritual, a thirty minute drive into town for coffee and a scone, at his favorite coffee shop in Athens" — and the byline — "Glouster, Ohio" (so the Athens is Athens, Ohio not Athens, Georgia). I really haven't read anything more, even now, as I write this. I just love the image. I feel like saying — creative-writing-ishly — there, now, you make up the story.

I can't get over how much I love that image. I love the way the curve of the ground makes the house look like it's on its own little planet. I think of:



Searching for that image, which I knew I'd put up on the blog before, I found the 2010 post, "Obama plan to land on asteroid may be unrealistic for 2025." I had totally forgotten about that going-to-an-asteroid business, hadn't you? I was skeptical at the time. I wrote the sentence: "Go 5 million miles to paddle your gloved hands across the surface of a rock and stir up a cloud of razor-sharp dust particles that will — once you leave — hang there endlessly."

Searching the blog for the Little Prince, I also came up with this November 2017 post (which has a "Little Prince" image): "Trump and the elephants — what just happened?" ("So you've probably heard that Trump made an announcement that had to do with killing elephants, people got upset — because people love elephants — and then Trump took it back — kind of.") Coincidentally, Trump and the elephants is back in the news this week. "Trump’s cave to elephant and lion hunters" is deplored by the editors of the Chicago Tribune:

Some African governments allow [elephants] to be taken by trophy hunters.... Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tried to discourage this macabre pastime by outlawing imports of elephant trophies from specified countries. African elephants are listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, and the law says their body parts may be brought in only if “the killing of the trophy animal will enhance the survival of the species.”

I think those words "Under President Barack Obama" bring tears to some eyes. There was a time! Once our quills were made to temporarily lie flat, but that time is gone.

But speaking of temps perdu, we left Erik Hagerman, walking down his ranch-house asteroid, nearing the bottom of the paved drive, which ends abruptly, like the end of a dreamlike Obama presidency. He must continue onto the rougher way of the gravel road. Where is he going? To the endless coffee cup and the scone.... Dare I step off the image I've said I love and walk onto the gravel path of the article?

Mr. Hagerman begins every day with a 30-minute drive to Athens, the closest city of note, to get a cup of coffee — a triple-shot latte with whole milk. He goes early, before most customers have settled into the oversize chairs to scroll through their phones. To make sure he doesn’t overhear idle chatter, he often listens to white noise through his headphones. (He used to listen to music, “but stray conversation can creep in between songs.”)

Why? Why drive 30 minutes to get coffee if you don't want the company of other human beings? Surely, the whole point is to "overhear idle chatter"! But he plays "white noise" — nothingness. Not even music, because with music, there are spaces of silence, and "stray conversation can creep in between the songs." Why come down from your asteroid? It can't be the triple-shot latte with whole milk. Is it to truly experience loneliness, to see and need to defend against the others? To really feel your distance, you must approach.

At Donkey Coffee, everyone knows his order, and they know about The Blockade. “Our baristas know where he’s at so they don’t engage him on topics that would make him uncomfortable,” said Angie Pyle, the coffee shop’s co-owner.

I'd skipped to the middle of the article, looking for coffee, and now I need to puzzle out Hagerman's problem:

Mr. Hagerman has also trained his friends. A close friend from his Nike days, Parinaz Vahabzadeh, didn’t think he was quite serious at first and, in the early days of The Blockade, kept dropping little hints about politics.

The new administration compelled her to engage more deeply in politics, not less. She had only recently become a United States citizen, and she was passionate about the immigration debate. She did not let Mr. Hagerman opt out easily. “I was needling him,” she said.

Ah! He built a wall — The Blockade. I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me... I will build a great, great wall...

How to write about articles you've never read.... makes me think about how to make art about the stray chatter you overheard in the coffee shop...