It's Not Easy Being Green

My friend Evelyn is all things FROG. She collects them. For as long as I’ve known her, she's identified with them, but I’ve never known why. Frog plates, platters, planters, soap dish, sponge holder, spoon rest, wind chimes, door sign. Even the plywood street directional sign is cut in the shape of a frog, painted green and points the way from the road to her forest home. Her front door sign proclaims, “Welcome to our (you-know-what-on-a-lily) pad.” The doorstop warns, “Beware of frog.” She named her hair salon Madam Frogge’s, yes, with two g’s. Why? Because she loves them so much? Clients gifted her with even more frogs for her collection.

Evelyn is outrageous. She always has been. At 72, she still has bright red hair and a raucous laugh. She’s hard to miss. As a child, she had psychic abilities that made her straight-laced Mormon and Baptist family extremely uncomfortable, especially when they saw wild birds perch on her daughter’s outstretched arms in the garden. Evelyn’s family tried in vain to squish her flamboyant uniqueness out of her. She remains indomitable, fully self-expressed. I love that about her.

Recently I spent a month at her home in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona while relocating from Santa Barbara to Albuquerque. It was the third of my four addresses in six months. One afternoon as she cooked our main meal, I asked her, “Evelyn, how and why did you ever get interested in frogs?” “Oh, it was in the sixties, I was at church, and the minister mentioned frogs in his talk. I was feeling particularly green and warty at the time, and I thought, ‘You know what? Green, warty frogs need love too.’ ” My heart opened to her in great compassion after this intimate sharing although I've known her for 26 years. Her story prompted me to think of Kermit the Frog singing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” It’s not easy being a human being. Evelyn takes care of her 93-year old mother who is on oxygen 24/7 and bent over with osteoporosis. Evelyn has had two rotator cuff surgeries and one partial shoulder replacement with another to come (a “hairdresser” ailment, like “tennis” elbow). She’s had the heartaches and losses that come with being human, and, yes, sometimes she’s green and warty. Now, when that happens, I think, “You know what? It’s not easy being green.”