It’s not easy being green. Just ask Kermit the Frog, having to spend each day the color of leaves. If you don’t believe him, try Elphaba. Haven’t met her either? Think back to the Wicked Witch of the Wizard of Oz. Poor girl, she was born green and that’s where her troubles began. She had to crawl on the back of her broomstick and learn to fly on her own because she was different from the rest. She had to defy gravity.
I got to meet Elphaba on a recent trip to Washington D.C. and New York City. It was a whirlwind tour. A 2 a.m. wakeup call, one White House, two blisters on each foot, three memorials, four museums, and 18 hours later, was the beginning and the end. Of the first day. And so it went.
A few evenings later, I reveled in the story song of Elphaba and Glinda in the Broadway play Wicked. College roommates as they were, the two witches were as different as night and day, one being green and the other, well, blond, both carried away by evil spells and a handsome scarecrow, dancing Munchkins and overtop of it all, a host of shrieking, bat-winged, flying monkeys. With Times Square just outside the door—deluged with a multitude of folks speaking languages I’ve never heard before from countries I barely know exist—well, hey Toto, we were not in Kansas anymore.
But Elphaba and Glinda weren’t the only two Easterners I got to know. I visited with an Orthodox Jew in the Holocaust Museum, who—in black yarmulke, beard and thin, twisted sidelocks—related how his grandmother, tattooed with a number on her forearm, spent an eternity in a concentration camp. I met an elderly gentleman on the subway who played a cello for the New York Opera Company. I talked to a man who’d moved to four or five differing countries to find work—without even knowing the language—until he arrived in New York City and felt his soul call the city home.
They were different from me; I could have called them green. But it takes just one step nearer to a stranger to discover that we’re closer than we think. To learn what each of us needs from the other: time. understanding. tolerance. kindness. Those shared seconds of understanding may be as close to greatness as we’ll ever experience
All around me were reminders of men and women who understood the importance of defending others who were denied the chance for greatness and even life itself, who were judged by differences: their disabilities, their ethnicity or the color of their skin. Abraham Lincoln, for example, who worked to abolish slavery. Franklin Roosevelt who designed a New Deal from the seat of a wheelchair. World War II soldiers who risked their lives to liberate the death camps. Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on the bus. Martin Luther King who rose to greatness on the back of a dream.
They reminded me of Elphaba who soared to new heights by refusing to believe that things can’t be changed. Because sometimes we all need a little help defying gravity. And you can bet your flying monkeys on that.
LaRayne Topp
I got to meet Elphaba on a recent trip to Washington D.C. and New York City. It was a whirlwind tour. A 2 a.m. wakeup call, one White House, two blisters on each foot, three memorials, four museums, and 18 hours later, was the beginning and the end. Of the first day. And so it went.
A few evenings later, I reveled in the story song of Elphaba and Glinda in the Broadway play Wicked. College roommates as they were, the two witches were as different as night and day, one being green and the other, well, blond, both carried away by evil spells and a handsome scarecrow, dancing Munchkins and overtop of it all, a host of shrieking, bat-winged, flying monkeys. With Times Square just outside the door—deluged with a multitude of folks speaking languages I’ve never heard before from countries I barely know exist—well, hey Toto, we were not in Kansas anymore.
But Elphaba and Glinda weren’t the only two Easterners I got to know. I visited with an Orthodox Jew in the Holocaust Museum, who—in black yarmulke, beard and thin, twisted sidelocks—related how his grandmother, tattooed with a number on her forearm, spent an eternity in a concentration camp. I met an elderly gentleman on the subway who played a cello for the New York Opera Company. I talked to a man who’d moved to four or five differing countries to find work—without even knowing the language—until he arrived in New York City and felt his soul call the city home.
They were different from me; I could have called them green. But it takes just one step nearer to a stranger to discover that we’re closer than we think. To learn what each of us needs from the other: time. understanding. tolerance. kindness. Those shared seconds of understanding may be as close to greatness as we’ll ever experience
All around me were reminders of men and women who understood the importance of defending others who were denied the chance for greatness and even life itself, who were judged by differences: their disabilities, their ethnicity or the color of their skin. Abraham Lincoln, for example, who worked to abolish slavery. Franklin Roosevelt who designed a New Deal from the seat of a wheelchair. World War II soldiers who risked their lives to liberate the death camps. Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on the bus. Martin Luther King who rose to greatness on the back of a dream.
They reminded me of Elphaba who soared to new heights by refusing to believe that things can’t be changed. Because sometimes we all need a little help defying gravity. And you can bet your flying monkeys on that.
LaRayne Topp
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