Tomorrow marks the beginning of year five as a high school math teacher at Bronx Letters. I know in my head that this year is going to be awesome because so many important techniques have become muscle memory and that I should feel confident about this, but I've been a nervous wreck for about a week. There's something about the prospect of potentially messing with the lives of a hundred young people that still gets me uneasy. I never feel like I'm prepared enough or working well enough to be the kind of teacher I want to be. The crappy part of this is that it's true. The part I can take relief in is that nearly every teacher feels this way--it just comes with the territory. Five years in and the importance, the sanctity, of what I do hasn't diminished for me one bit. And I think that's ridiculously awesome.
This has the makings to be a great year. After a lot of upheaval, the school seems to be finding its way. There's a ton of new teachers and a palpable energy and enthusiasm. I feel like it's possible for me to strike that balance of being extraordinarily demanding while having a lot of fun at the same time. I think I've lost my sense of fun in the classroom over the past couple years as I've tried to be more "serious" as a teacher, and it's like throwing away my best weapon. I'm gonna let it all hang out this year AND provide the kind of structure and organization that let's the kids know that they're learning. That they're moving forward towards something important.
I think I must have a natural poker face because most people seem to think I have it together all the time. It's weird because often times (like over the past week) I feel like I'm falling apart at the seams and it's totally obvious. A big part of me worries that I'm just not good enough to do this job well. Even worse, I worry that I haven't done enough to get to that place. When I first moved out here and started teaching it was easy for me to forgive my shortcomings. I knew that I wasn't where I needed to be. It was part of why I chose to teach in the first place--I figured it would help me become the kind of person I wanted to be, and it has. But every year that passes it becomes more difficult for me to forgive my faults. I should be past these battles by now, no? I should be able to overcome the things that hold me back. I realize that the expectations are entirely my own, but I don't think they're unreasonable. So every misstep starts to feel like a failure of character. It becomes a heavy burden to bear (again, one that is entirely imposed by my own expectations).
That means I have to simultaneously forgive/not be so hard on myself/have FUN! while also being super hard on myself so I can push forward to becoming the kind of teacher/person that I'd like to be. I think it's a balancing act that we do all the time without thinking about it, but when it skews toward one side it becomes more apparent. I think writing about it is my attempt to get it out of my system so I can move on and not think about it so much.
So I'm super excited about (deathly afraid of screwing up!) this school year. I know I'm going to do great things in the classroom and learn a lot about myself and a group of incredible kids in the process (unless I don't...). And it's going to be a ton of fun along the way (until I start grading my first batch of papers). Hmmmmm. I thought this was supposed to get easier...
Monday, September 3, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Mapping
Sometimes I think I should start off my blog pieces with a line from Almost Famous. I have tons of strange, innocuous (and usually incoherent) thoughts racing around my head all the time, and this post will contain one of them. Here's the scene from the movie:
So here's a theory for you to disregard completely:
A few days ago I went running along the East River, and I started thinking about my face. Hey, the mind wanders. More specifically I was thinking about my resemblance to other people in my family. It's fairly obvious that I've inherited my most striking features from my maternal grandfather, Marvin. We have the same facial shape, similar bone structure, and, ah, that nose. Plus I'm starting to master his incredulous/exasperated look, though my eyebrows ain't got nothing on his:
Hardly a revelation. However, from the right angle, I think I also bear a pretty strong resemblance to my paternal grandmother, Betty. I've noticed it more and more, especially in facebook photos posted on my timeline this summer.
Which got me thinking...
One of the most useful concepts to understand in mathematics is that of a "function." There are a bajillion different ways to think about a function, but in a basic sense it takes an input and transforms it into an output. For example, a gumball machine performs the "function" of transforming a quarter into a gumball. Or with numbers, let's say your input is 2 and output is 4; input is 3 and output is 9; input is 4 and output is 16; ... The function is to take the input and square it.
You can also use functions to explain a lot of visual things that involve math. Take a projector, for example. Place your hands in front of the light of a projector, and suddenly there's a bird on the wall!
Your hands are the input, and the image on the wall is the output. Depending on how you angle your hands, different images appear on the wall. In math, stuff like this is called mapping. You're mapping an image of your hands onto the wall. The cool thing (and, yes, I'm using the word "cool" very loosely) is that the same pair of hands can make a bajillion different images, depending on how the light hits them.
...Which brings me back to my face. I was thinking that genetics are kind of like mapping. I was also probably thinking of the term "genome mapping" which doesn't exactly apply here, but, you know, word association. Certain traits from our ancestors are "mapped" onto us, only we can't see them all at once because the image depends on the angle. It's like we're a mosaic of our family tree, each feature a different projection from one of the branches.
So here's a theory for you to disregard completely:
A few days ago I went running along the East River, and I started thinking about my face. Hey, the mind wanders. More specifically I was thinking about my resemblance to other people in my family. It's fairly obvious that I've inherited my most striking features from my maternal grandfather, Marvin. We have the same facial shape, similar bone structure, and, ah, that nose. Plus I'm starting to master his incredulous/exasperated look, though my eyebrows ain't got nothing on his:
Which got me thinking...
One of the most useful concepts to understand in mathematics is that of a "function." There are a bajillion different ways to think about a function, but in a basic sense it takes an input and transforms it into an output. For example, a gumball machine performs the "function" of transforming a quarter into a gumball. Or with numbers, let's say your input is 2 and output is 4; input is 3 and output is 9; input is 4 and output is 16; ... The function is to take the input and square it.
You can also use functions to explain a lot of visual things that involve math. Take a projector, for example. Place your hands in front of the light of a projector, and suddenly there's a bird on the wall!
Your hands are the input, and the image on the wall is the output. Depending on how you angle your hands, different images appear on the wall. In math, stuff like this is called mapping. You're mapping an image of your hands onto the wall. The cool thing (and, yes, I'm using the word "cool" very loosely) is that the same pair of hands can make a bajillion different images, depending on how the light hits them.
...Which brings me back to my face. I was thinking that genetics are kind of like mapping. I was also probably thinking of the term "genome mapping" which doesn't exactly apply here, but, you know, word association. Certain traits from our ancestors are "mapped" onto us, only we can't see them all at once because the image depends on the angle. It's like we're a mosaic of our family tree, each feature a different projection from one of the branches.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
It runs like a river, runs to the sea
I'm on a break from school, so there's two things you can pretty much bet I'm doing: running and writing. I decided to get real creative and write about running, but I'm not going to wax poetic on how each stride, each breath falls in rhythm with the river, the trees, the people, the noises, the Manhattan skyline in the background. (I've written about that before, right?) I think instead I'm going to write about why I run, which I'm pretty sure will be somehow connected to why I write. Well, we'll see. Here goes:
Today I ran to escape. I've been feeling less than spectacular over the last few days, mostly as a function of having time on my hands. Whenever I stay in New York for a break I get really excited about having time to myself, and then I quickly find that I want to be surrounded by other people. The odd thing is that I have spent plenty of time with friends, but it hasn't helped to shake that feeling of being alone. I think I want that feeling, that connection, where someone just gets you, but it takes a lot of time to forge something like that. I value my friends here. This feeling I've had over the last few days makes me question whether I've been a good enough friend to warrant the kind of depth I crave.
So I laced up my Nikes and set out for a sunset run (so beautiful at the beginning of spring) because I wanted to run through, run past, run away from these feelings of loneliness and not making enough of my time. I imagine that some people ride motorcycles, some people paint pictures, some people act or sing at the top of their lungs. I run. And, god, I'm thankful for it. I'm so grateful that I can step outside of whatever is going on and appreciate the people and things that surround me, appreciate the simple act of breathing, appreciate the surprisingly powerful sensation of moving forward. I run because it's an assertion of who I am. I run because I can fade into the background and be a moving part of something much larger than myself. Today I let myself seep into my music a little more than usual, hence the title of this post (from "One Tree Hill" off The Joshua Tree). The thoughts that clog up my head loosen and release, my breathing falls into rhythm, and everything feels...symbiotic. Connected.
Running doesn't always feel like that. Sometimes it feels overwhelmingly lonely. Sometimes arduous. Sometimes like not much of anything at all. I've run for so many different reasons over the years--for girls (that could be the reason for pretty much anything I've done over the last nine years), to prove something to myself, to exercise, to vent, to celebrate, to explore a new place. The motivation has a strong impact on the experience.
My will to write comes from similar motivations, but I'm not as good at following through with it. Sometimes I write things that I don't publish in a blog. Sometimes I start stories (but almost never finish them). I write because I want to figure out things that make my head hurt when I think about them. I write because I want to show someone the beauty, the value, I see in him or her (okay, pretty much always her). (Okay, 100% of the time her). I write because I feel off balance and I want to explore what it is that knocked me over that way. I write to vent. I write to escape. One of my favorite lines is from William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! A character in the story is trying to get over a traumatic experience, so she gives a somewhat random person a letter, not because she cares whether or not the letter gets read, but because she wants to do something that puts it in the past. She says, "'I want is to become was.'" Sometimes writing allows a troubled thought to leave my head, pass through my finger tips, and become was.
I think I'm writing this as a blog post because I want something similar to what I found in my run today. I want to move past the fears and sorrows that gnaw at me. I want to feel connected, symbiotic. And I wanted you to know.
Today I ran to escape. I've been feeling less than spectacular over the last few days, mostly as a function of having time on my hands. Whenever I stay in New York for a break I get really excited about having time to myself, and then I quickly find that I want to be surrounded by other people. The odd thing is that I have spent plenty of time with friends, but it hasn't helped to shake that feeling of being alone. I think I want that feeling, that connection, where someone just gets you, but it takes a lot of time to forge something like that. I value my friends here. This feeling I've had over the last few days makes me question whether I've been a good enough friend to warrant the kind of depth I crave.
So I laced up my Nikes and set out for a sunset run (so beautiful at the beginning of spring) because I wanted to run through, run past, run away from these feelings of loneliness and not making enough of my time. I imagine that some people ride motorcycles, some people paint pictures, some people act or sing at the top of their lungs. I run. And, god, I'm thankful for it. I'm so grateful that I can step outside of whatever is going on and appreciate the people and things that surround me, appreciate the simple act of breathing, appreciate the surprisingly powerful sensation of moving forward. I run because it's an assertion of who I am. I run because I can fade into the background and be a moving part of something much larger than myself. Today I let myself seep into my music a little more than usual, hence the title of this post (from "One Tree Hill" off The Joshua Tree). The thoughts that clog up my head loosen and release, my breathing falls into rhythm, and everything feels...symbiotic. Connected.
Running doesn't always feel like that. Sometimes it feels overwhelmingly lonely. Sometimes arduous. Sometimes like not much of anything at all. I've run for so many different reasons over the years--for girls (that could be the reason for pretty much anything I've done over the last nine years), to prove something to myself, to exercise, to vent, to celebrate, to explore a new place. The motivation has a strong impact on the experience.
My will to write comes from similar motivations, but I'm not as good at following through with it. Sometimes I write things that I don't publish in a blog. Sometimes I start stories (but almost never finish them). I write because I want to figure out things that make my head hurt when I think about them. I write because I want to show someone the beauty, the value, I see in him or her (okay, pretty much always her). (Okay, 100% of the time her). I write because I feel off balance and I want to explore what it is that knocked me over that way. I write to vent. I write to escape. One of my favorite lines is from William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! A character in the story is trying to get over a traumatic experience, so she gives a somewhat random person a letter, not because she cares whether or not the letter gets read, but because she wants to do something that puts it in the past. She says, "'I want is to become was.'" Sometimes writing allows a troubled thought to leave my head, pass through my finger tips, and become was.
I think I'm writing this as a blog post because I want something similar to what I found in my run today. I want to move past the fears and sorrows that gnaw at me. I want to feel connected, symbiotic. And I wanted you to know.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
1986 - The Year That Everything Blew Up
I was on a coach bus heading back north from Champaign-Urbana. As far as I can remember this was before we stopped at a Bakers Square and Alex Imas and I attempted to devour an entire french silk pie. Alex and I were talking to the seniors about all sorts of things: cheating, girls, gambling, college. Eventually we got around to the great burden resting on the seniors' shoulders, the senior research paper. That's when some guy named Leo talked about his recently-turned-in masterpiece, with a title I'll never forget:
"1986 - The Year That Everything Blew Up"
It changed my life. As I recall his essay was about Chernobyl and eating enormous mutant rats for dinner. I don't think he passed. But boy, what a title.
I bring this up, well, because in general I've been nostalgic lately, and I'm remembering all sorts of little details from my past. I also mention it because I've been looking back at the year that just passed, and there's a pretty strong current that runs through it. It's just That Time for my peer group. That's right, this year was:
"2009 - The Year that Everyone I Know Made Plans to or Did in Fact Get Married"
Like, everybody. I don't know what socks I'm going to wear tomorrow; I can't imagine knowing who I want to spend the rest of time with. Actually, that's a cliche response to marriage. That part of it doesn't befuddle me so much. It's more that even if I was at the point where I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with someone, I can't imagine marriage being the best option at this point. I feel like there's so many other things I need to figure out first. So many things I need to become before I can even be qualified to be a husband, and, even more so, a father. I'm not even talking about material things, necessarily (although I can barely afford a box of Cracker Jack and the ring inside let alone an engagement ring). I'm talking about character things. Responsibility things. Life-decision and career things.
I've eschewed concrete paths and plans for awhile now. Life seems too chaotic and unpredictable for them. I've long preferred to take a passion and run with it. I must be getting older because I realize that I need to come up with some concrete goals and develop tactics to work towards them. Winging it doesn't work when someone else's life is involved. I think I've learned that lesson as a teacher, and I'm finally starting to apply it to my own life. I hope that all these newly married couples - or those who soon will be - have figured these things out for themselves. I hope they're at some sort of peace with themselves as individuals. I don't think I'm there yet. I hope to be, someday. I wouldn't want people to remember my marriage as the One Where Everything Blew Up.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Past and Future do a Delicate Dance at a Kosher Dunkin Donuts
About an hour ago I was sitting in a (recently, I assume) kosher Dunkin Donuts, sipping a cup of coffee and reading V. by Thomas Pynchon. Ah, to be home again. I kept my schedule wide open this time around because I wanted to have as much time as possible to spend with my dad, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, my sister, who recently graduated from Columbia College, and my momma, who I just don't get enough time to talk to. As a result, I found myself in a kosher Dunkin Donuts at noon on a Tuesday reading Thomas Pynchon. I think the reason why I like reading the modernists and post-modernists like Pynchon is because I'm forced to chew on the text. I have to work at them to figure out what they're getting at. Consequently, this practice helps me dig through all the things going through my head so I can figure out what I'm getting at. My walk home (I am insurance-less and therefore car-less) afforded me plenty of time to do just that.
I'm not sure I can quite put my finger on what I'm experiencing right now. Unsurprisingly, being home at the same time in which so many of the people I grew up with are home has brought about a sense of nostalgia. But it's not a nostalgia filled with memories. It's not a nostalgia for things that happened. It's more a nostalgic feeling for things that never happened. It's a memory of impulses not acted upon and promises unfulfilled. It's not regret - not at all - but rather a curious cascade of what-ifs and what-nows.
Part of it comes from being so far away from New York and so far away from the life I've created there. The work I'm doing in the South Bronx means very little in Skokie, and it's difficult to communicate what it is I do when my audience has no understanding of the environment in which I work.
Part of it is that I feel more connected to the person I was when I was living in Skokie, which I suppose was back in high school. Throughout college and the year after I generally felt lost and directionless. I didn't have the same sense of purpose that I did when I was a high-school student, and I couldn't escape the feeling that I was missing out on something. Teaching, for reasons I've written about in the past, has renewed my sense of purpose, and I think I'm starting to develop some longer-term ideas of what I'm trying to accomplish. In general, I feel pretty good about myself and I want to build upon what I'm doing now into something larger. What that is, exactly, I haven't quite figured out, but I'm working on it. This is more than I could have said in any of the past five or six years. So the what-ifs come from this sense of lost time in my twenties, and the what-nows come from what I plan to do with myself over the next few years.
It's interesting to hear about the people you grew up with and all the different paths their lives have taken. I'm overwhelmed by all the possible directions I could have gone, and to think of all these other people, with their own stories and their own lists of could haves and should haves, is mind boggling. I imagine that a lot of people my age are going through the same thoughts as me, taking stock of how they got to where they're at and wondering if that's a good place to be. Maybe they're even drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee as they do it.
Another thought strikes me while I'm in this reminiscent mood - I really like the people I know or have known. I'm interested in their stories and I'm happy to be associated with them in some way. I have this line from Finnegan's Wake popping up in my head from time to time: "Here Comes Everybody." I think that's what it feels like for me as I come home and listen to all these different stories of what people are up to, and I start to think back to how I remember them and the feelings and images I associate with them. Everyone rushes back into my consciousness, and I wish I could tell them all that I think of them and that they matter and that I wonder how they're doing now. Here comes everybody. Welcome home.
And there it is. I feel it so plainly with every word I type. A sense of wonder. That's what connects me back to those long-gone days and what endears me to Skokie in spite of it being, well, Skokie. I like the people here, the people that came from here. I like that they're a part of who I am. I wish I had a better way of letting them know.
I'm not sure I can quite put my finger on what I'm experiencing right now. Unsurprisingly, being home at the same time in which so many of the people I grew up with are home has brought about a sense of nostalgia. But it's not a nostalgia filled with memories. It's not a nostalgia for things that happened. It's more a nostalgic feeling for things that never happened. It's a memory of impulses not acted upon and promises unfulfilled. It's not regret - not at all - but rather a curious cascade of what-ifs and what-nows.
Part of it comes from being so far away from New York and so far away from the life I've created there. The work I'm doing in the South Bronx means very little in Skokie, and it's difficult to communicate what it is I do when my audience has no understanding of the environment in which I work.
Part of it is that I feel more connected to the person I was when I was living in Skokie, which I suppose was back in high school. Throughout college and the year after I generally felt lost and directionless. I didn't have the same sense of purpose that I did when I was a high-school student, and I couldn't escape the feeling that I was missing out on something. Teaching, for reasons I've written about in the past, has renewed my sense of purpose, and I think I'm starting to develop some longer-term ideas of what I'm trying to accomplish. In general, I feel pretty good about myself and I want to build upon what I'm doing now into something larger. What that is, exactly, I haven't quite figured out, but I'm working on it. This is more than I could have said in any of the past five or six years. So the what-ifs come from this sense of lost time in my twenties, and the what-nows come from what I plan to do with myself over the next few years.
It's interesting to hear about the people you grew up with and all the different paths their lives have taken. I'm overwhelmed by all the possible directions I could have gone, and to think of all these other people, with their own stories and their own lists of could haves and should haves, is mind boggling. I imagine that a lot of people my age are going through the same thoughts as me, taking stock of how they got to where they're at and wondering if that's a good place to be. Maybe they're even drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee as they do it.
Another thought strikes me while I'm in this reminiscent mood - I really like the people I know or have known. I'm interested in their stories and I'm happy to be associated with them in some way. I have this line from Finnegan's Wake popping up in my head from time to time: "Here Comes Everybody." I think that's what it feels like for me as I come home and listen to all these different stories of what people are up to, and I start to think back to how I remember them and the feelings and images I associate with them. Everyone rushes back into my consciousness, and I wish I could tell them all that I think of them and that they matter and that I wonder how they're doing now. Here comes everybody. Welcome home.
And there it is. I feel it so plainly with every word I type. A sense of wonder. That's what connects me back to those long-gone days and what endears me to Skokie in spite of it being, well, Skokie. I like the people here, the people that came from here. I like that they're a part of who I am. I wish I had a better way of letting them know.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The story of Jon and Sheila's wedding
So I recognize that my last blog post was just over two months ago, on June 16th, or as literary dorks like me like to call it, Bloomsday. Good things seem to happen to me on the 16th (e.g. I was born on that very day in April of 1985), and I've got another great day to add to that list, courtesy of this past Sunday. I will fill you in on all the big things that happened since mid-June (reflections on my first year of teaching, saying goodbye to students for the summer, grad school, and NYC adventures to name a few), but I might as well start off with what's fresh in my memory and work backwards from there.
This past Sunday, August 16th, Jon Proniewski married Sheila Swartz. Allow me to explain why this was such a big deal. Jon and I met at Northwestern and have remained close friends ever since. He's one of the few people who knows what the hell I'm talking about when I say things like "Bloomsday" because I weaned him off his steady diet of Romantic lit for a few quarters and got him to take some Irish lit courses with me. Jon and Sheila met three summers ago at "institute" for Teach For America. They spent the next year dating long distance--Jon was in D.C. and Sheila in Chicago--before Jon returned to the city of broad shoulders in 2007. This was quite lucky for me as I got to spend the better part of a year with my good friend a stone's throw away, and I became acquainted with the extraordinary Sheila Swartz.
About a week after I moved to New York (i.e. the beginning of last summer), Jon called me and started off the conversation by asking, "So, will you be my best man?" His timing couldn't have been worse (I wasn't able to share a celebratory bottle of champagne with him for another few months, in New Jersey no less), but his news couldn't have been much better. Jon was the first of my close friends to get engaged, and I was honored that he tabbed me to stand beside him at his wedding.
I saw Jon and Sheila's relationship evolve over the course of our year spent together in Chicago. It was pretty incredible that they were able to make it work for so long from long distance, but I was more impressed with what they managed to overcome while living together. Both are overachievers with tremendous workloads, and I know that Jon was pretty used to living alone. They navigated through highs and lows, and my last impression before I left for New York was the two of them laughing together and holding hands walking down the twilit sidewalk in Lincoln Park. They were never ostentatious about their love, but I had more than enough images like this in my memory of them being secretly sweet to each other.
Now, why do I mention this detail about Jon and Sheila? After all, this is my blog, not theirs. Perhaps to explain what happened between Jon asking me to be his best man and the actual wedding.
Much like what happens when you go from coach to first class (which has never happened to me, by the way), I was bumped up. Upgraded. Several months ago, Jon asked me to "officiate" his wedding, meaning that I would be the person to lead the ceremony and make it official in the eyes of the law. You may be saying, "Jeff, I know you were Bar Mitzvahed, but I don't think that makes you qualified to go marrying people off" or, "Don't you need to be a priest or rabbi or tribal shaman or something to do that sort of stuff?" And you would be right. That's where the internet comes in. You see, Jon did this officiating business for his friend Grant's wedding, and he was able to do it by becoming an ordained minister for the Universal Life Church Monastery (Dot com).
Apparently it went well, and, since they're not particularly religious, he and Sheila decided that they too would prefer someone close to them to guide their wedding ceremony. Someone who knew them both well, someone who could handle writing a sermon, someone who had spent the last year in Chicago with them, someone who looks dashingly handsome in a suit, someone like ... me.(Okay, maybe they didn't think about the last part, but it didn't hurt).
With Jon and Sheila's wishes clearly presented before me, I went about the strenuous task of becoming an ordained minister through the Universal Life Church Monastery (dot com). It consisted of typing my name AND my e-mail address into their database. Once this was done and I was an ordained minister, I had to go through the much more difficult process of typing my mailing address and credit card information in order to obtain my certification certificate, which I then sent to the State of Ohio along with some other minimal paperwork and a ten dollar check and voila! I was free to administer as many marriages as I wanted--albeit in Ohio. I thought about ordering the ministerial wallet card as well, but I didn't want to look like an amateur.
Let me tell you, becoming an internet-approved minister is a hell of a conversation starter. I would introduce my new status by telling people, "I'm a reverend now. Like Al Green." (FYI Al Green is an actual reverend at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis, Tennessee). But the gleeful irony of a Catholic Church-raised Jew becoming an ordained minister of a pan-religious organization that exists solely on the internet only lasts for so long. (I trust that it will wear off soon). It was time for me to get down to business and write the text for the wedding ceremony.
This proved to be rather difficult. Jon and Sheila, for all their sarcastic wit, are fairly serious people. The text Jon provided for me in his framework of the ceremony was sparse and succinct. I knew they wouldn't be up for any grandiose saccharine testaments to the majesty and beauty of love, filled with unicorns and mighty white steeds and eternal bliss (because so many other weddings are chock-full of that stuff...). I had to keep it corn-free, but I didn't want it to sound like a funeral. It was very important to me to do a good job on this, too. For all my joking about becoming a minister, I took my responsibility very seriously. I wanted to present something worthy of the occasion, worthy of their relationship to one another. It took me forever to come up with ideas (again, I haven't been to very many weddings), and it took even longer to pen those ideas down. I didn't actually have a final draft of the ceremony that I was confident with until the day before the wedding.
The sermon ended up being a near-perfect balance of gravity, humor, and optimism. I started off a little light so no one would be surprised if I stuck in a joke later on. I talked about what I liked in their relationship, and then I spoke briefly about what I admired in each of them. I waxed poetic on Sheila, expounding on her intelligence and good will with the best words my vocabulary could muster. I then turned to Jon and pretended to be at a loss for something good to say about him, eventually concluding that he has really great hair (which in all actuality he does). The delivery was perfect, especially as I quickly transitioned to the next part of the sermon, leaving the eloquent and accomplished Jon with praise only for his coiffure. The guests loved it, and I had to wait a few seconds for the laughter to die down. It rolled perfectly into the rest of the sermon, which was far more serious. I talked about the importance of love as a verb rather than a noun (thanks, Zev!), about how the action of loving someone has the capacity to make boring, everyday things a little bit wonderful. I thought it was sweet. But not too corny.
The rest of the service flew by. (This was a good thing; it was 90 degrees outside and the sun was shining its demonic, er, angelic rays on us for the entirety of the ceremony). They each said "I do" before exchanging their vows in private. Sheila's astonishingly heartfelt words just about melted me (with the sun's help). I let out a deep sigh at one point, which wasn't such a good idea because I was wearing a microphone headset, and the guests were treated to a big muffled whooshing noise coming from the speakers. They exchanged their rings, and then came the really fun part. I got to say, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
But not before prefacing it with one of the all-time great lines you can ever say at a wedding service: "By the power vested in me by the State of Ohio... and the internet, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride." Everyone was laughing and applauding and crying. It was awesome. And Jon and Sheila were married. And I was the person that made it so. That still hasn't quite sunk in yet.
The whole experience was nothing short of wonderful. Their friends delivered readings during the ceremony that were funny and sweet and lovely. The groomsmen were great to be around all weekend, and Sheila's friends were thoughtful and interesting (and devastatingly attractive). I love Jon's family, and they were great to me the entire time, even driving me back to the east coast. Sheila's mom threw the whole weekend together, and her father, as it became readily apparent to me, was a man of exceptional character and humor. Jon and Sheila themselves were remarkably relaxed throughout the whole wedding and the days leading up to it (I was with them since Thursday). They took such comfort in each other, and they were working together as a perfect team. Watching them all weekend made Sunday just a little more special for me.
After the ceremony, both Jon and Sheila's fathers came up to me with heartfelt thanks and congratulations. That meant quite a bit. Guests who didn't know me were surprised that I didn't do this sort of thing for a living. Jon and Sheila said they wouldn't have had it any other way. I think everyone enjoyed it, and I hope they were able to catch even a small glimpse of what makes those two so good for one another. I loved every minute of it, and who knows? Maybe it could be the beginning of a beautiful new career. Now if only I could finagle it so I can do Bar Mitzvahs....
This past Sunday, August 16th, Jon Proniewski married Sheila Swartz. Allow me to explain why this was such a big deal. Jon and I met at Northwestern and have remained close friends ever since. He's one of the few people who knows what the hell I'm talking about when I say things like "Bloomsday" because I weaned him off his steady diet of Romantic lit for a few quarters and got him to take some Irish lit courses with me. Jon and Sheila met three summers ago at "institute" for Teach For America. They spent the next year dating long distance--Jon was in D.C. and Sheila in Chicago--before Jon returned to the city of broad shoulders in 2007. This was quite lucky for me as I got to spend the better part of a year with my good friend a stone's throw away, and I became acquainted with the extraordinary Sheila Swartz.
About a week after I moved to New York (i.e. the beginning of last summer), Jon called me and started off the conversation by asking, "So, will you be my best man?" His timing couldn't have been worse (I wasn't able to share a celebratory bottle of champagne with him for another few months, in New Jersey no less), but his news couldn't have been much better. Jon was the first of my close friends to get engaged, and I was honored that he tabbed me to stand beside him at his wedding.
I saw Jon and Sheila's relationship evolve over the course of our year spent together in Chicago. It was pretty incredible that they were able to make it work for so long from long distance, but I was more impressed with what they managed to overcome while living together. Both are overachievers with tremendous workloads, and I know that Jon was pretty used to living alone. They navigated through highs and lows, and my last impression before I left for New York was the two of them laughing together and holding hands walking down the twilit sidewalk in Lincoln Park. They were never ostentatious about their love, but I had more than enough images like this in my memory of them being secretly sweet to each other.
Now, why do I mention this detail about Jon and Sheila? After all, this is my blog, not theirs. Perhaps to explain what happened between Jon asking me to be his best man and the actual wedding.
Much like what happens when you go from coach to first class (which has never happened to me, by the way), I was bumped up. Upgraded. Several months ago, Jon asked me to "officiate" his wedding, meaning that I would be the person to lead the ceremony and make it official in the eyes of the law. You may be saying, "Jeff, I know you were Bar Mitzvahed, but I don't think that makes you qualified to go marrying people off" or, "Don't you need to be a priest or rabbi or tribal shaman or something to do that sort of stuff?" And you would be right. That's where the internet comes in. You see, Jon did this officiating business for his friend Grant's wedding, and he was able to do it by becoming an ordained minister for the Universal Life Church Monastery (Dot com).
Apparently it went well, and, since they're not particularly religious, he and Sheila decided that they too would prefer someone close to them to guide their wedding ceremony. Someone who knew them both well, someone who could handle writing a sermon, someone who had spent the last year in Chicago with them, someone who looks dashingly handsome in a suit, someone like ... me.(Okay, maybe they didn't think about the last part, but it didn't hurt).
With Jon and Sheila's wishes clearly presented before me, I went about the strenuous task of becoming an ordained minister through the Universal Life Church Monastery (dot com). It consisted of typing my name AND my e-mail address into their database. Once this was done and I was an ordained minister, I had to go through the much more difficult process of typing my mailing address and credit card information in order to obtain my certification certificate, which I then sent to the State of Ohio along with some other minimal paperwork and a ten dollar check and voila! I was free to administer as many marriages as I wanted--albeit in Ohio. I thought about ordering the ministerial wallet card as well, but I didn't want to look like an amateur.
Let me tell you, becoming an internet-approved minister is a hell of a conversation starter. I would introduce my new status by telling people, "I'm a reverend now. Like Al Green." (FYI Al Green is an actual reverend at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis, Tennessee). But the gleeful irony of a Catholic Church-raised Jew becoming an ordained minister of a pan-religious organization that exists solely on the internet only lasts for so long. (I trust that it will wear off soon). It was time for me to get down to business and write the text for the wedding ceremony.
This proved to be rather difficult. Jon and Sheila, for all their sarcastic wit, are fairly serious people. The text Jon provided for me in his framework of the ceremony was sparse and succinct. I knew they wouldn't be up for any grandiose saccharine testaments to the majesty and beauty of love, filled with unicorns and mighty white steeds and eternal bliss (because so many other weddings are chock-full of that stuff...). I had to keep it corn-free, but I didn't want it to sound like a funeral. It was very important to me to do a good job on this, too. For all my joking about becoming a minister, I took my responsibility very seriously. I wanted to present something worthy of the occasion, worthy of their relationship to one another. It took me forever to come up with ideas (again, I haven't been to very many weddings), and it took even longer to pen those ideas down. I didn't actually have a final draft of the ceremony that I was confident with until the day before the wedding.
The sermon ended up being a near-perfect balance of gravity, humor, and optimism. I started off a little light so no one would be surprised if I stuck in a joke later on. I talked about what I liked in their relationship, and then I spoke briefly about what I admired in each of them. I waxed poetic on Sheila, expounding on her intelligence and good will with the best words my vocabulary could muster. I then turned to Jon and pretended to be at a loss for something good to say about him, eventually concluding that he has really great hair (which in all actuality he does). The delivery was perfect, especially as I quickly transitioned to the next part of the sermon, leaving the eloquent and accomplished Jon with praise only for his coiffure. The guests loved it, and I had to wait a few seconds for the laughter to die down. It rolled perfectly into the rest of the sermon, which was far more serious. I talked about the importance of love as a verb rather than a noun (thanks, Zev!), about how the action of loving someone has the capacity to make boring, everyday things a little bit wonderful. I thought it was sweet. But not too corny.
The rest of the service flew by. (This was a good thing; it was 90 degrees outside and the sun was shining its demonic, er, angelic rays on us for the entirety of the ceremony). They each said "I do" before exchanging their vows in private. Sheila's astonishingly heartfelt words just about melted me (with the sun's help). I let out a deep sigh at one point, which wasn't such a good idea because I was wearing a microphone headset, and the guests were treated to a big muffled whooshing noise coming from the speakers. They exchanged their rings, and then came the really fun part. I got to say, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
But not before prefacing it with one of the all-time great lines you can ever say at a wedding service: "By the power vested in me by the State of Ohio... and the internet, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride." Everyone was laughing and applauding and crying. It was awesome. And Jon and Sheila were married. And I was the person that made it so. That still hasn't quite sunk in yet.
The whole experience was nothing short of wonderful. Their friends delivered readings during the ceremony that were funny and sweet and lovely. The groomsmen were great to be around all weekend, and Sheila's friends were thoughtful and interesting (and devastatingly attractive). I love Jon's family, and they were great to me the entire time, even driving me back to the east coast. Sheila's mom threw the whole weekend together, and her father, as it became readily apparent to me, was a man of exceptional character and humor. Jon and Sheila themselves were remarkably relaxed throughout the whole wedding and the days leading up to it (I was with them since Thursday). They took such comfort in each other, and they were working together as a perfect team. Watching them all weekend made Sunday just a little more special for me.
After the ceremony, both Jon and Sheila's fathers came up to me with heartfelt thanks and congratulations. That meant quite a bit. Guests who didn't know me were surprised that I didn't do this sort of thing for a living. Jon and Sheila said they wouldn't have had it any other way. I think everyone enjoyed it, and I hope they were able to catch even a small glimpse of what makes those two so good for one another. I loved every minute of it, and who knows? Maybe it could be the beginning of a beautiful new career. Now if only I could finagle it so I can do Bar Mitzvahs....
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Pondering the ineluctible modality of Ulysses
Today marks the 105th anniversary of the day James Joyce first "stepped out" with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, the day he later turned into the longest day in the history of literature. My all-time favorite novel Ulysses takes place on June 16, a day that is now known as "Bloomsday" after its famous protagonist Leopold Bloom.
I was planning on doing a series of blogs today recounting my thoughts and experiences as they transpired, but as I write this in the dwindling minutes before my grad class on geometry begins I realize that it wouldn't have been all that varied or interesting. I have been grading papers for what feels like the last five years. Practice state tests, unit tests, final exams--you name it, I've graded it. Today was the big state test on geometry. I spent the morning hyping my students up and then administering the test, and the last 4 hours of my life were spent grading all the tests. The good news is that the results have been encouraging so far. The bad news is that I still need to finish grading tonight and tomorrow morning. Then I might finally be done.
Ulysses is a story about everyday mundanities, but there wasn't much of an arc to my day. At least not yet. The night is still young. So many more papers left to grade....
Actually a lot has been going on, and I have a lot to say. I just can't seem to find the time. I'll try to write more--maybe tonight. Hopefully I'll have a pint of Guinness in my belly as I drink to Stephen Daedalus and Leo Bloom and the magic of the ordinary.
I was planning on doing a series of blogs today recounting my thoughts and experiences as they transpired, but as I write this in the dwindling minutes before my grad class on geometry begins I realize that it wouldn't have been all that varied or interesting. I have been grading papers for what feels like the last five years. Practice state tests, unit tests, final exams--you name it, I've graded it. Today was the big state test on geometry. I spent the morning hyping my students up and then administering the test, and the last 4 hours of my life were spent grading all the tests. The good news is that the results have been encouraging so far. The bad news is that I still need to finish grading tonight and tomorrow morning. Then I might finally be done.
Ulysses is a story about everyday mundanities, but there wasn't much of an arc to my day. At least not yet. The night is still young. So many more papers left to grade....
Actually a lot has been going on, and I have a lot to say. I just can't seem to find the time. I'll try to write more--maybe tonight. Hopefully I'll have a pint of Guinness in my belly as I drink to Stephen Daedalus and Leo Bloom and the magic of the ordinary.
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