April 13, 2012
Speech
I have no idea if this is what I'll actually say tomorrow afternoon, in the post-ceremonial, post-prandial alcoholic haze, facing all those merry faces. But for now it approximates what I think I want to say...
Thank you all for coming.
Really that's all I have to say. I could, and perhaps should, stop there. But of course I won't. It's my wedding, something that -- thank fuck -- doesn't happen every day. So I'm going to pontificate a bit -- which, if I'm honest, probably does happen pretty often...
I'd like to draw your attention to how very strange an occasion this is -- and, frankly, what an odd collection of people you are. A set that has never been brought together before, and in all likelihood never will again.
That is something to be proud of, I think; and to be grateful for.
I am absolutely delighted at all the different factions here, all the different aspects of the lives for which Ian and I are jointly and severally liable. There are people here who have known one or other of us since birth, people from childhood, from school, from work. People from our youth and -- well, let's call it our maturity. Some we spend lots of time with from day to day, others glimpsed only rarely. One or two I am meeting for the first time. An alarming number weren't even born when the two of us first met, more than two decades ago; when we hated each other.
Between you, you have been party to many, many varied fragments of our lives. You represent the overlapping histories that brought us to this point. An intricately entwined patchwork of fractal connectedness, a network of networks, a grid of grids. The boundaries of that geography of yearning are extremely nebulous. There are no clear points A and B. To pinch a nice phrase from Maggie Armitage, White Witch of the North London Coven of St James the Elder: everything starts and ends in the middle. And here we are, now, in the middle. Stuck in the middle with you.
This is what it means to be human, of course. We are a social species. We exist through our interactions with other people. Cooperation beats defection. We are better together than apart. We all scurry around pantomiming volition, making it up as we go along, not just for ourselves but collaboratively: moment to moment we write each other's lives.
I would like to thank you very much for the life you have, in all your own ridiculous ways, helped to write for me and Ian. You've played a blinder this time. Bloody good job all round.
Our good old English language has a word for this, in all its vagary and grubby complication: family. Like it or not, you all are part of our family. Just think of the cheesy soap opera cum Greek tragedy that might ensue.
The last time I gave a speech like this -- which is to say, without slides or data -- was at a much sadder family occasion; that, ultimately, provided some of the impetus for this one. What I said then was, I think, pretty congruent with what I'm saying now, which may just show up the paucity of my oratorical imagination but I hope not. What we have, what we are, is defined by all the people that we know and love. Today, for me, is about that. So while I am very sad that my father, Peter, could not be here to see it, I am all the more grateful that all of you could.
On behalf of both of us, thank you, again. And please join me in raising your glasses:
To present company... and absent friends.
Posted by matt at April 13, 2012 8:54 PM