Hi. I'm (the other) Matt. And I'm going to leave some things out about myself. It's not that I want to hide anything from you; but inevitably in these introductions there is neither the room nor the desire to truly show who we are. It makes me wonder, like in our discussion on Friday, whether this type of exercise really gets at the "truth" of who we are. Maybe that's not the point. Perhaps the point is merely to give us a few things to help us remember each other by. Like the fact that it bugs me that I ended that sentence with a preposition, but I think the proper way of saying what I just said sounds pompous.
So here we go. I am a part time student turned full time student this semester. I'm also a full time marketing and website manager at Northern Lights, though I have a flexible enough schedule that I can attend class and hope to get my homework done in what is sure to become some very long evenings. I am also a proud papa of a 1.5 year old boy named Sawyer that has absolutely baffled me with wonder. My favorite part of the day is seeing him and helping him explore this big world full of new things.
I came to Bozeman several years ago chasing that elusive dream of "living in the mountains." I love to backcountry ski, trail run, climb mountains and anything else that gets closer to the pure pleasures of life's necessities: food, water and crisp air tinged with a tiny dose of fear. These days I do a lot more 2 mile hikes with a toddler strapped to my back, stopping to inspect bugs and rocks. I don't mind the slower pace. I feel like I'm biding my time until I'll be chasing Sawyer through the Bridgers, unable to keep up with the fearlessness of youth.
I'm in the writing program to develop my writing skills and to abide by my desire for lifelong learning. I have no idea what I'll do with an Engish degree, though I hope to get away from the dripping words of marketing copy and into a career in which I can write about things that are truly meaningful. To me, that's the meaning of life: pursuing your passions. And if you don't know what those passions are then you pursue the answers that will uncover those passions.
That's me. I hope that gives you a snapshot. Wow. Ok, one more thing. I seriously just watched two sandhill cranes fly by my window. Amazing.
Matt - I love your observation at the opening here, because one of the things that happens, when we start to fully embrace the vast distance between word and thing (that is, the word can never represent the thing, wholly) is that we begin to see how tenuous anything put into language is. It actually gets quite disorienting - it makes everything put into language already suspect in some way, only partially accurate.
ReplyDeleteI can still ski faster than my kids, but that might not last much longer...