THE BEST OF TIMES

Dear Ernest,

What a year! It's 1922, and you're 23 years old this year. WOW! What you've seen and experienced in your life, dear Hem, in those 23 years could fill a book. By 19 you were immersed in the war, in Italy, and wounded. You've survived the streets of Chicago as a cub reporter; you've fished, hiked and canoed your way from Canada to Michigan; you've loved, lost, and loved again; and you've married and moved to Europe - Paris in particular. That's what I call action packed, my friend.

And now... biggest WOW of all! You're living your dream, married to the woman you're mad about, hiking and skiing in Switzerland, enjoying the life fantastic in Paris. What more could you ask for? 

In January, 1922 you wrote your family, "Bones (your term of endearment for Hadley) and I are living up here at about 3,000 feet above sea level and having the most gorgeous time... It is Les Avants, above Montreaux on Lake Geneva and wonderful mountain sports." You write them of your your new apartment in Paris, "It is on top of a high hill in the very oldest part of Paris. The nicest part of the Latin quarter. Just back of the Pantheon and the Ecole Polytechique." You write your good friend, Katherine Smith, "My gawd the fun a man has...It is so beautiful here that it hurts in a numb sort of way all the time,only when you're with somebody you're lovers wit the beauty gets to be jost sort of a tremendous happiness. It's so damn beautiful, Butstein, and we have so damn much fun."

My dearest Hem, you are fully, totally, and completely smitten - with Hadley, with Paris, with Switzerland...with life! These are truly the best of times. And the people you are meeting! You write of dining with Gertrude Stein who, as you share, "is keen about your poetry." You go on to share, "Me and Ezra Pound are getting to be great pals." The literary mix you are immersed in is impressive.

I am so very please to hear that you are writing. This wonderland that you inhabit, these creatives that you are entrenched with, it all comes together to create a rare and fortunate opportunity. The experiences you're amassing, whether hiking the Black Forest of Germany, or fishing the pristine streams of rural France, are all fodder for the literary pieces you will create and the works you will put forth.

Remember, dear Hem, to take the time to appreciate and enjoy this time. Life is so uncertain and change is inevitable, but for right now the world is your oyster. Enjoy!

With Warmest Regards,
Betsy

OFF TO PARIS TO WRITE

Dear Hem,

WOW! 1921 was one whirlwind of a year! If you weren't immersed in writing, socializing with your friends, and camping and fishing, you were getting married and preparing to go abroad. By October, 1921 you had arranged with the Star to go to Paris as a roving correspondent. With the modest income you were going to receive from the Star combined with Hadley's trust income, your return to Europe and your wish to focus on your writing is really starting to take shape.

You write your family on December 20, 1921 of your passage, "We've had a fine trip. Stopped at Vigo in Spain and went ashore in a motor launch. Only very rough one day. Then a regular hurricane...Hash (his nickname for Hadley) is very popular aboard the ship because of playage of the piano...There are a funny lot of people aboard but many a few very nice ones. We land in Havre tomorrow about noon and will be in Paris tomorrow night." 

Another letter that you wrote to Bill Smith, during that same time-frame personified the "manly" Hemingway. (You so love your characters, even in how you personify yourself to the different people in your life!) "Vigo, Spain. That's the place for a male. A harbor almost landlocked about as big as little Traverse bay with big, brown, mountains. A male can buy a lateen sailed boat for 5 seeds. Costs a seed a day at the Grand Hotel and the bay swarms with Tuna. They behave exactly like lainsteins - sardines for shiners - chase them the same way and I saw 3 in the air at once - 1 easily 8 feet. The biggest one they've taken this year weighed 850 lbs!" What a "fish story!"

Paris! What an amazing city, and to be young, in love, and brimming with creativity and drive - ah, dear Hem, you are in your element! You wrote of it to your friend, Sherwood, "Well here we are. And we sit outside the Dome Cafe, oposite the Rotunde that's being redecorated, warmed up against one of those charcoal brazziers and it's so damned cold outside and the brasier makes it so warm and we drink rum punch, hot, and the rhum enters into us like the Holy Spirit. And when it's cold night in the streets of Paris and we're walking home down the Rue Bonaparte we think of the way the wolves used to slink into the city and Francois Villon and the gallows at Montfaucon. What a town."

With the letter of introduction from Sherwood Anderson that you brought with you, introducing you to the likes of Lewis Galantiere, Sylvia Beach, Exra Pound, and Gertrude Stein, your immersion in the literary world of Paris is guaranteed! How exciting!

The rate of exchange in France makes living comfortably very reasonable indeed, and by January 8,1921 you wrote your friend, Howell Jenkins, that you and Hash were moving to an apartment at 74 Rue du Cardinal Lemoine. Amazing, Hem! You went from living in those boarding house conditions as a street reporter for the Star, to Paris where you share that, "We're not going to keep house till we get back from Chambry Sur Montreaux in Switzerland where we're allezing for a brace of the weeks to shoot some winter sports." You must be black-and-blue from pinching yourself to see if you might wake up from this dream!

Dearest Hem, throughout your letters written in 1922 I read about your happiness, your wonder at your life and your passion for immersion in what you love. You revel in the literary world you're becoming a part of. You delight at the life you are leading with the woman who you love and who shares in your wonder and delight. This is an amazing time in your life that shines brilliantly. It is all so new, so rich, and at times so overwhelming. You, sir, have the bull by the horns. I encourage you to enjoy this time and write "like there's no tomorrow." This is the beginning of something great. 

Give my love to Hash.

With Warmest Regards,
Betsy

CHOOSING A LIFE OF FULL IMMERSION

Ernest Hemingway and Hadley Richardson

Dear Ernest,
Wouldn't you know it! You no sooner fall in love then your friend James Gamble invites you to travel with him to Italy for an indefinite indulgence in "romance spaget and fleas again." Your reply telegram speaks of the truth of your current life outside of the ideals you continue to paint your life with, despite the truth, " Rather go to Rome with you than heaven STOP. Not married STOP. But am broke STOP. Sad STOP. Too sad for words STOP Writing and selling it STOP. Unmarried but don't get rich STOP. All authors poor first then rich STOP. Me no exception STOP. Wouldn't we have a great time STOP. Lord How I envy you. Hemmy

You never do make that trip with James, though you seriously think about it as you wrote Hadley on December 29, 1920, "Things are all up in the air. I'm liable to leave Tuesday for Rome, not Rome N.Y. via Washington to pick up passport and will leave from here to St. Louis and then to Washington. Here's the chance - 5 months of writing under Ideal conditions..."

I have to wonder, Hem, if you chose not to go because you may have had a foreshadowing of what might happen based on your experiences with Ag. In your mind I have to wonder if you don't seriously doubt the old adage that, "absence makes the heart grow fonder." In the end you chose not to go to Italy and to stay Stateside, work, and court Hadley.

Hem, I am constantly impressed the the level of your knowledge around literature and the arts. It is obvious you are a voracious reader. In your letter to your mother, dated January 10, 1921, you write of Levin (1892-1981), a Russian-born journalist who worked at the KS Star; Mischa Levitzki (1898-1941), an American pianist and composer; Josef Hofmann (1876-1957), Polish-born pianist - and the list of composers and writers you mentioned in your letter goes on and on. It's impressive!

As I read this letter to your mother I sense that you may feel a real sense of inadequacy as you try to shine in your mother's shadow. It always seems that you're doing your darnedest to try and impress her and possibly prove to her that you are worthy, somehow. Coming from a Mother's perspective that saddens me as I would hope that she would choose to affirm your worthiness, whatever your career or educational choices, but that space of kind, unconditional love does not seem to be the space that your mother operates from when it comes to her children, or at least when it comes to you.

I love that you mentioned the poet Carl Sandburg in your letter to Bill Horne, dated January 26, 1921. I too am very fond of Sandburg's acerbic style of writing:

"Your head ain't screwed on wrong, I trust.
Use your noodle, your nut, your think tank,
your skypiece. God meant for you to use it.
If they offer to let you in the ground
floor take the elevator."

This year,1921, was a pivotal year for you, Hem. You launched into a life of full immersion in your writing and networking. The year is peppered with letters to editors and publishers and submissions of manuscripts and ideas. Your prolific creative nature is becoming more focused and, as such, is carrying you forward in a time span of perpetual motion and creativity. In this time span you have also made the decision to marry Hadley and that has set reactions and plans into motion that are pivotal to your future.

Congratulations on your pending marriage to Hadley! I see that you will be married on September 3, 1921 at the small Methodist church in Horton Bay. How wonderful! You happily share your satirical view of the event in your letter to your sister, Marcelline, dated August 11, 1921, "The enditer is to become man and wife on September the 3rd at Hortense Bay, Michigan, as yet I do not realize all the full horror of marriage, which was plainly visible on the Blights face, you recall his face?, and so if you wish to see me break down at the altar and perhaps have to be carried to the altar in a chair by the crying ushers, it were well that you made your plans to be on tap for the date. It is a Saturday."

I am thrilled for you as this marks a turning point in your life and career. Before the end of the year you and Hadley will set sail for Europe and the start of something very different from your life stateside. Well done, Hem! Well done!

Warm Regards,
Betsy