Author Archives: Matt Balleza

When I think winter I think stay. And when I think summer I think go. Very much go. Lift off the ground and travel someplace new and unexpected. See new faces and think about your life back home. Sure, travel is expensive, tiring, and you’ll miss your own bed. Forget about that. Here is myContinue reading “You should GO”

St. Jerome has a quote that I like: ‘A polished discourse only gratifies the ears; one which is not so makes its way to the heart.’ The same could be said about writing. Sometimes pretty words lie dead on the page. Sometimes polished words are not the words with power behind them. Eloquence does notContinue reading “The power of imperfect words”

A friend once told me that universities do most of their construction during the summer months because that’s when benefactors come and visit campus and they like to see new projects going up. Their money being well spent. True or not, I’ve seen a lot of construction happening lately. Homes being built and roads beingContinue reading “You should build it this summer”

The other day on a trip through Annapolis, I saw a pallet of brown bricks sitting in the middle of the road. At first, I thought nothing of it. but as I continued on my way I noticed the road before me was filled with pockets and holes and sprawling divots where bricks were missingContinue reading “The importance of ordinary things”

Plans, decisions, projects, all the consuming subjects back at home take a needed pause here. We let the wind carry them softly down the dunes, up and over the hills where the gulls dance and the shore continues its slow, calm, continuous march. We enter into that for a time and that is good. AContinue reading “Journal from the beach”

Go ahead, look again. I have a friend who can name a dozen species of marsupials, tell you how fast an ostrich runs on land, and describe a common diet of the bearded dragon. I’m not an animal lover like that, but I have moments of fascination. A few years ago my wife and IContinue reading “The art of double takes”

Big things seem less big at the sea. Important things, strenuous things seem less important, less strenuous. I used to think this was a magic trick, an enchantment created by the wind and the waves and the billowing sea dunes. But with every passing year I’m convinced it’s the other way around. We do notContinue reading “Journal from the beach”

How to handle head trash. Sometimes all we want to do is get from A to B. Sometimes the work we need to do is simple but we make it complicated. We add unnecessary things, we second-guess things we know, we procrastinate. We have a knack for distraction and we get derailed by doubts. AnyoneContinue reading “Drive the bus”

Life is not fair. It’s not fair on land, and it’s not fair on the great blue sea. A few days ago I went beach fishing with my nephews. It was a fun time, but to be honest, I didn’t intend it to be a family outing. For a couple months I had been lookingContinue reading “What to do when you get beat”

Have you ever found yourself hassled by all there is to do in a given week or month? As the common adage goes, we’ve been taught we need to ‘live in the present.’ But despite what the mindfulness gurus insist, I find living in the present hard. It’s not that the present is always fullContinue reading “Don’t live in the present. Live in the day.”