Hemingway's Whiskey

"Hemingway's whiskey, warm and smooth and mean. 

Even when it burns, it'll always finish clean. 

He didn't like it watered down, he took it straight up and neat.

If it's bad enough for him, you know it's bad enough for me."

- Hemingway's Whiskey by Kenny Chesney

For those of you who may not be a classical literature junkie like I am, Hemingway was known for his whiskey-guzzling tendencies. He even once said, "Write drunk, edit sober." It's a strange concept to me, drinking for inspiration. "A good muse is hard to find," though I guess, right? Some people find their way through nature, others through music and action. For me? My whiskey is people.

As hard as it has been for me to admit, I love people, and I love hearing their stories. I fall in love with people every day. Yes - I fall in love with strangers every single day. Think I'm crazy yet? I'm a people watcher, that much is for certain. Sometimes I find myself sitting in a room full of people and making up stories for people I don't know. I imagine what they are talking about, what their family is like, what their dreams and hopes and aspirations are. I find myself wondering about their first love, how badly it broke their heart, and what they did to get through it. Do they have a passport? Where has it been stamped? What book are they currently immersed in, do they become a part of the story the same way I do? "There is no friend as loyal as a book." Are they deeply rooted to their hometown, or do they feel most at home fulfilling their wanderlust?

I don't just see people, I see their stories. I see an opportunity to make myself a bigger, better, more well-rounded person for knowing them. "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen." I'm the type of person that hates knowing there are corners of this Earth I haven't yet seen, that there are people I still have yet to meet.

Don't get me wrong. There are people I have experienced that I could do without. People who have broken my heart over and over, but that I continued to go back to - an addiction, Hemingway's whiskey. "Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start, and you have to be especially hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it - don't cheat with it." There are people in my life that I have let go, the ones who got away. There are people who I have taken for granted, prematurely cast judgement upon, let my eyes be opened by. I always try to convince myself that I am my own person, but just as much as Hemingway will forever be defined by his whiskey, I will always carry around pieces of all of the people I meet.

I hate to love people, in a way similar to that which I imagine Hemingway hated to love his whiskey. I don't enjoy watered down people. I love people who, while they might burn a little on the way down, teach me valuable lessons. I may never leave a legacy quite as strong as his, but it won't stop me from trying. Live hard, die hard - this one's for him.

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."

- Ernest Hemingway