Tuesday, November 02, 2004 -- 1:57 PM

This past year has been really quite a growth spurt for me in some ways (and in others quite perhaps the opposite). I know this is the sort of reflection that is mainly reserved for the new year, but to hell with that for now.

Last year around this time was when I began to understand Hemingway. What I realize now is that I began reading him knowing it was good, then only gradually realizing why. I have since been applying my discoveries (or these have been applying themselves) to the literature that I read, everything that I write, and the way that I live. It transformed the way in which I read and why, and I would even say it taught me to read. In a way you could say that I discovered the "Meaning of Life" (In Technicolour) this past year, and, at the risk of sounding like a pompous ass, found that there really wasn't much to it at all. Living is easy, even contentment is easy.

It was at this time of the year last year also that I found myself without an older brother, roommate, and constant companion. It may have been a result of this vacuum that I filled my life with literature, though I would never say that I was depressed. I think if I was depressed, I could never have learned from Hemingway.

I began listening to Ben Lee the Fall of last year, and now that Fall is back, so is Ben Lee. The music and musings of Ben Lee are especially connected in my mind with the discovery of Hemingway on those cold fall days of last year, and the hours I spent pondering Hemingway's prose mingled with Ben Lee's verse.

Now here I am, a year later and in some ways a year older. I've discovered more this year than I have in probably all of my teenage years. Alcohol, nicotine, loneliness, Hemingway, love. I don't feel eighteen at all, but only because I wasn't expecting it to feel like this.