Coming out

Today was my coming out party as I think about it, my debutante ball. (And I have way too many gay friends to not know the typical meaning of coming out, and I’ve been wondering what closet I’ve been in that I might be coming out of…) I’m not sure whether it was Robyn who called it this or whether it’s Michael and Rob who tease me at home about it, but this seminar I did today at NZCER felt like my attempt to say, Hello New Zealand, I’m here! So, on this last day of my 36^th year, I had my first coming out party in a conference room in a hotel in Wellington.

Robyn and I have been planning this since I started this position in January. For the first several months, I agonised over what I might say that I was going to do in the information flyer we sent out. And then for the next several months, I agonised about how I’d design the 3-hour seminar that I’d advertised. I haven’t been so nervous about a teaching event since I taught at Harvard—was unexpectedly nervous about this, considering it’s whatever I wanted it to be and just a time for me to play with. There’s a way it felt almost self-indulgent, even, to have someone sponsoring some nice hotel event for me to hold an audience of important strangers captive.

This morning I got up in the dark and joined all the other business people on the early train to town, packed and speeding through the magnificent countryside without a glance up from whatever Important Paper they happened to be reading. Once I got to Wellington, in the lovely daylight, I was astonished at the wind (which I shouldn’t have been—it’s not called “windy welly” for nothing). I found myself on a cross street one block from the hotel leaning all my weight into the wind and feeling myself go nowhere. My earbuds flew out of my ears, my bag pulled towards the sea, and all of my fellow walkers looked like we were in some slow-motion feature, our hair streaming behind us, our feet labouring to take each step, and our jealous glances resting on those walking in the opposite direction who blew past us at double-time. What if I’m blown away, I wondered, with the magical thinking I most often muster before a presentation I’m nervous about. But I wasn’t. And now it’s over, and I’m much lighter as I speed through the grey early afternoon to play with the kids and change out of this purple suit and high heels and into comfy clothes and possum-fur slippers.

So, how’d it go? Well. Very well. The crowd of about 40 people was made up of colleagues from NZCER (about 1/3 of the audience) strangers from the Ministry of Education, teachers’ unions, a handful of universities and schools, and other educational places. And B, the lovely woman selling us the house on the hill, came too. The crowd was quieter than a crowd in the US, mostly less interested in hearing itself talk. But the laughter was as warm, and the ideas were as rich as any group I’ve worked with before. The level of engagement was satisfyingly high, and there was a real interaction with the idea of adult development and what the implications were. And because it was New Zealand, there was an interesting cross section of the education sector—a broader cross section than I can imagine in the US. And because it is a country unhampered by bad legislation like No Child Left Behind, there’s actual potential here for the kind of paradigm shift that would come from taking seriously the learning of adults.

And there were people saying lovely things about how important these ideas are to the whole future of the country, and how fantastic it is for New Zealand that I’ve come here and how long am I going to stay (I DON’T KNOW) and what do I do on the three days I’m not at NZCER (I DON’T KNOW!!). They were enormously flattering in their low-key Kiwi way and, perhaps better yet, it was fantastic to engage with these ideas on what is now my home soil.

As I stood at the front of the room and walked around listening to the engagement of my colleagues and sector-colleagues, I began to think, Hey, I AM here, I AM among people who do what I do, and for whom what I do really matters. And maybe new relationships will come out of this, and maybe there’ll be follow-up emails (I’ve already gotten an invitation to do a keynote at a conference next year). And maybe I’ll be less anonymous, maybe I’ll feel more known. It’s amazing how important that feeling turns out to be, the feeling that I am someone because I see your recognition of that fact in your eyes. I am known, therefore I am. I have lots of theories to explain that connection (taught one of them today) and still I am surprised at how strongly it matters, how in-my-gut it all is. And, to be known in the city and then take the train home to my cottage by the sea—that might be as close to a description of pure bliss as I can imagine (if only those of you reading were here too).