Best Man Speech
Alright, can everyone hear me ok?
Yes!
Shoot, I’m so sorry about that.
[laughter]
No, all joking aside, public speaking has never really been my thing, so I’ll keep this mercifully brief today. If you want the really good stuff, you can come find me later after I’ve taken full advantage of the open bar.
[laughter]
When Paul asked me to be his best man, I of course immediately said “Absolutely not.”
[laughter]
It’s a lot of pressure, ok! I’ve been talking for all of what 10 seconds and look how much I’m already sweating. No, no, of course I said yes. Paul and I have been best friends for about as long as I can remember. I did ask him though, when it’s time for me to, you know, give a speech, are there any topics that are off-limits, and before I was even done asking the question he blurts out, I kid you not “Beale Street, July 2011.” That’s all he said. “Beale Street, July 2011.”
[laughter]
So, without further ado, let me go ahead and set the scene for you: It’s July 2011, and Paul and I are on Beale Street.
[laughter]
It’s ok, Paul, relax. Relax. God all of a sudden you’re sweating more than me now! It’s all good buddy, I promise.
So a couple years ago a geologist named Seth Kadish created a graph that can tell a person approximately how fast they’re moving in space at any given time, depending on where on the Earth they’re located. So right now, given the speed of the Earth’s rotation, all of us in this room here in Wisconsin are moving at right around 750 miles per hour. But another room of people on the equator, at this exact same time, on this exact same planet is moving more than 1,000 miles per hour right now. That’s a difference of 250 miles per hour. And someone standing at the north or south pole isn’t moving at all. Everyone, all of us, alive at the same time, moving at vastly different speeds, anywhere from 0 to 1,040 miles per hour, for our entire lives and we don’t even know it. And that doesn’t even account for the speed of the Earth’s rotation around our sun.
[laughter]
I dated a guy off and on when I was studying abroad for a semester in Seville. His name was Matt and he was mostly a good guy but he was one of those people who likes to fight — like he just gravitated toward conflict. It was almost like arguing was how he expressed himself or something. And he was really good at fighting and I’m really bad at it, so we just went back and forth like that the whole time, not really ever meeting in the middle. Paul came to visit me in Seville for a week and we all hung out. Remember that, Paul? Matt had a ridiculous pair of orange safety glasses, which, I don’t know if he thought they were cool or what, but he’d bring them to bars and stuff and wear them and act ridiculous. I would say a good third of the photos we’re in together, he’s wearing these awful glasses. I saw on Facebook he had a wedding of his own recently. Of course it’s hard to tell on social media because, you know, people pretend and perform but it seems like he’s calmed down a lot. The other night on the train I was thinking about him. I don’t know if what we had was a relationship per se. I don’t think he would call it that at least. More of a rehearsal, I guess. I think one of my biggest problems is I spend too much time dwelling on the hideous things people do to each other.
[laughter]
I have this recurring image — not a dream or a memory, just a half-real place my mind drifts to sometimes. I’m in a rowboat, completely alone, in the middle of a lake so big I can just barely make out the shoreline in any direction. The water’s completely still. Suddenly an enormous object just beneath the surface illuminates below me, a perfect circle maybe a half mile in diameter. Bright as anything you can imagine. When it comes to life my vision splinters into a hundred different points of origin, so I can actually see myself from above — not even a silhouette, just a small, barely perceptible speck almost entirely overwhelmed by the light sprawled out below me. And then a current forms in the water and the lake breaks forward becoming a river and whatever’s waiting for me at the end of it is just as frightening and as beautiful as I decide to make it. We, all of us, join a great current midstream and then we’re submerged again. Appear, disappear, reappear, disappear. This is how we were born and this is how we will die.
[laughter]
As far as “Beale Street, July 2011” is concerned? I mean, the whole story is me and Paul and a few other guys had a crazy weekend in Memphis five years ago. Nothing sinister or terrible. A few of us did coke for the first time. Paul hooked up with a woman in some bar’s bathroom. It was all a little irresponsible and immature I guess, and Paul’s eager to put that part of his life behind him, which is completely his right. I get it.
I never told Paul about this but on our last night in Memphis we were at this bar about to close it down. I’d stepped outside for some fresh air and I ventured down an alley. I just had this weird feeling, you know? Like your senses are heightened, like something’s about to happen. The way your body feels just before you’re about to sneeze. Anyway I was walking alone down this alley, it was late, and I felt my shoulder blades arch and begin to separate from my back. My limbs grew longer and my rib cage swelled up and my skin toughened and stretched to accommodate what my bones were becoming. Every nerve ending was exposed to the air all at once and it was so excruciating it quickly turned to bliss, I could feel my legs climbing an invisible staircase into the thick night sky, and my skull shattered and reformed, my palms were shapeless. And my heart — much bigger than it had ever been before — expelled every impulse of doubt and fear until all was left was pure love and compassion for each living thing, at whatever speed the Earth is moving it. And each dead thing, at whatever speed the Earth is moving it. My body just carried on like this until sunrise. Matt once told me there was a darkness inside me I couldn’t hide forever. That night I felt it shake loose and evaporate as everything does and always has.
[laughter]
And so, now I invite you all to raise your glass. To Paul and Angela. I’m so, so happy you found each other. And I couldn’t be more thrilled to be here with you on this perfect day. I love you both. Cheers.
