Matt's Missives

shit. victoria has finally stopped feeling like home. it's pretty nice. i used to love coming back here and feeling like i was supposed to be here, but in the last year i just got tired of the same faces, doing the same thing. when i was here in april it was the last time i felt at home, and that was because of the friends that were living here. now we've all gone our own way, and i come back into town and realize that there's noone for me to stay with, really, so i stay with friends of friends. it's great to feel i know this city well, to know some people here, but to be less than visible. i don't have to talk to people everywhere i go, i am in the shadows of this city again. great.

Posted by matt at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"i'm getting weaker, i'm getting thin, i hate how obvious i've been." --songs-ohia. sometimes i feel like this too (with girls in particular), but then i realize better to be obvious. i hate mind games, and i'd rather just be able to say "hey i've got a crush on you, and if it's not reciprocal that's okay, it's just a crush." unfortunately life doesn't work this way, and all you have to do is sort out confused looks and half smiles.

Posted by matt at 02:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After heat of the day, a fatigue that lasts from noon to six, i can work again. trench digging and some time in the garden takes me to the lake. the evening means cooler waters, and less people, and as i make my way down the trail i take particular pleasure in the noise made by cowboy, my four legged associate, as he's the only one making any noise. the horizon is tinted pink, from the giant setting sky furnace, the waters are as still as i've seen them, the ripples normally found on the surface have been transposed to the northern clouds. i dive in, the only being to break the stillness except the occasional fish, surfacing, or the occasional insect, landing, and surfacing see nothing but pink, on the water, in the sky. and the water washes away all the heat, and any of the anger or sadness i might have felt today. and so i kick around and appreciate my brief solitude, a few moments in a day. on shore again, ready to go, i reach into my pocket to find the stone that has been waiting for the right time to be skipped at the right place. so i send it out, towards the friend who has the other half, and it takes one long leap off the water, and lands, far from where i found found it, in its new home. and i go home. and it only takes one moment to realize some things.

Posted by matt at 05:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

apparently poetry recitation and walking are good for the heart. dactylic hexameter, the old greco-roman meter, has particular benefits to the heart. this makes sense as it's essentially what is known as the walking beat in african rhythms. 12312312312312312. it reminds me of bruce chatwin's discussion of universal grammar in relation to humanity's nomadic nature--that language evolved from this particular rhythm, evidence of which is the tripartite organization of language: subject, object verb (in any particular order), 123, walk on. quite intertesting.
in the vein of universal grammar, i read yesterday that according to some anthropological linguistic institute over 700 of the 1000 languages they have extensive records of contain the word papa in reference to father. common origins . . .

Posted by matt at 05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

my heart tells one story, repeatedly.
recited like a song,
whittled at: it's a work in progress.
repeated with every step
refined with every movement.
said out loud
sung just so i'll learn to listen
just so i'll hear what it's telling me.

Posted by matt at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)