There is a line of badges attached to a ribbon which I’ve got hanging on my dining room wall. You know the kind I mean — little round discs of tin or plastic, with slogans on one side and a catch to attach them to a T-shirt or jacket lapel on the other.
Usually my eyes slide over them like eyes do when they see things every day but today I decided to take the ribbon off the wall and take a closer look.
You will recognise some. I loved the I’m addicted to Heroines one when I bought it – clever I thought and true. The one from Buffalo marks a very significant occasion totally overlooked by NZ Media and therefore New Zealand — October 1989 and women playwrights from all round the world gathered for their first convention in Buffalo New York. We came from Sri Lanka, Greece, Britain, South Africa, China (Mainland and Hong Kong), France, Italy, Germany, USA and I’ve probably left out some. Before the weekend there was a reception in New York City and I went along and it was all very loud and welcoming, exciting and confusing and I was wishing I’d never come when all of a sudden I heard behind me that unmistakeable accent – an Aussie playwright? Here too? I almost ran over and we both hugged and jumped up and down and from then on it was great. But the significant thing was not that meeting, it wasn’t that there were three keynote speakers and I was one.
Or that I was to be the first. Enough to make me want to run away and hide perhaps but not the standout events as far as I was concerned.
The significant thing was that the first words of the Convention opening were in Te Reo Maori — and while it got a great reception there I don’t think it even registered in Aotearoa – but the badge reminds me that it happened.
The others speak for themselves — Auckland in the eighties — I loved wearing these badges on the bus – especially the bakery one – people tried to read the words on my chest without appearing to be trying to read the words on my chest. When they did manage to read the words they were (generally) sorry they’d made the effort.
Made me smile then, makes me smile now.
