Key notes

And so it is now over, this terribly stressful and high-performing beginning of April. Two SOI workshops in two countries, two major presentations in front of large groups (one at Harvard, one in Auckland), two presentations in front of smaller groups. I have taught 9 out of the 20 days so far this month, travelled on seven of the 20 days (twice for 24 hours each). I am thrilled to have it all behind me. Ah, but it’s been fantastic too, better and better from hindsight. (Below me on this plane from Auckland to Wellington I’m watching what happens when a river lets out into the sea, currents and colour shifting and swirling. This country is so majestically beautiful I can’t believe it!)

One last story from this trip, and then I’ll look ahead to coming home to my lovely new house and my family and my friends and the life and work I’m building here. My lecture at Harvard went very well Monday, but because I am fantastic at turning everything into something to worry about, I found a way to turn that success into an anxiety: namely, that it had gone well because this was a friendly American audience and I understand how to make sense of those and reach them, and thus I was totally screwed about the large New Zealand audience I’d face on Saturday morning. I was stoic in my resolve, though, that this would be an interactive session, even though the kiwis were unlikely, culturally, to want to interact. I designed and redesigned, and finally was ready(ish).

The Minister of Education was going to speak first, and I did not anticipate the kind of pomp and circumstance that would bring. He was announced with a loud Maori call, and we all stood up as he marched down the stairs and into the room, to the song—a waiata—of the group. This was an Official Welcome, and I was delighted to be in my seat and not up on stage yet (they had asked, and I’d declined). And I thought about how horribly uncomfortable I would feel in that Minister’s place, how icky it would be to have all the people standing for me and singing for me. Ugh. He gave his speech and I tried not to work myself into a froth of nerves. And then, in a rush, he was gone, and I was up.

I broke many of the conventions of the previous keynotes: told jokes, wandered around the stage rather than standing behind the podium, asked them questions to which I didn’t know the answers. In the first couple of minutes, when I told them to talk to each other about a question I had asked, a woman in the front row gasped audibly. I laughed at her—with her—and commented about her shock. The crowd laughed good naturedly. We were off.

I taught a very basic one-hour intro to adult development which was not the thing they were expecting to hear at this teachers’ union conference. But they were patient and kind and laughed and volunteered every bit as willingly as Bob Kegan’s students had. Even more, the small group of Maori teachers—who had been the ones to lead the singing around the minister—sometimes called out “Kia ora!” after I had said something they found particularly worthy of comment (I had thought that meant “welcome” but I’ll have to ask someone). Suddenly it was very much like being in an African-American church with the chorus of “amens.” I would smile and carry on.

Finally it was over. Miraculously, I had used the time just right and had come to the end of my content and the end of my allotted time simultaneously. I was so relieved it was over—and pleased with how willing and interactive the audience had been—that I could hardly contain my joy. But then, something happened. The Maori group stood up and began to sing. To me. This was not a pre-planned ceremonial marker, but an impromptu thank you. In lovely harmony, with spontaneous hand-waving and facial expressions, the group sang. The only words I could make out were haere mai which means “welcome” and Aeotearoa, the word for New Zealand. I, who had known that I would die of embarrassment if this group sang to me as they had sung to the Minister, stood on the stage, beaming so fiercely I thought my face would break. They were welcoming ME to New Zealand! They were saying that this too is my place.

Afterward, there was a lovely outpouring of conversation and complements. Rose, came up to be sure I understood the double honour of the waiata: both the fact that they did it and the song that they had picked. “They’ve welcomed you here,” she explained. “Now you’re really one of us.”

And so it’s true that maybe I don’t have easy roots in Cambridge anymore, and maybe I don’t have long roots in NZ, either. But here at the end of a long trip, it all feels ok. I have rolled around the airport floor tickling Aidan, walked up the beach to the pizza shop for dinner, and admired Naomi in her new coat, complemented all the work done on the house in my absence. I feel very welcome indeed. Haere mai, haere mai, Aeotearoa.