The Lovers, the Dreamers and Me

Okay, so maybe I'm a day or two past his birthday, but I couldn't let the opportunity pass to pay my respects to one of the most influential people in my life--Jim Henson.  As I grow older, I come to better understand the quiet, unique and wonderful influence this man and his Muppets had and continue to have on my life.

I didn't know it at the time, but Miss Piggy was the first feminist I ever met.  I was in 2nd Grade and how I loved the way she owned her swinehood!  She didn't take flack from anyone--especially from the sexist pig captain of "Swine Trek" or the overrated doctor from "Vetrinary Hospital" who had "gone to the dogs."  Beautiful became synonymous with big and bold.  And who can forget the karate chops? "HI-YAH!"  In the end, there was NO problem that a well placed, sequined heel in a karate chop couldn't solve.  These are my feminist roots.  Perhaps the "male tools" were born from the hours I spent watching Miss Piggy keep the men around her in line.  (And if you don't know what the "male tools" are, be glad.  Be very, VERY glad.)

Even more endearing to me, was the sweet, soft spot Miss Piggy had for the altruistic, skinny legged frog named Kermit, who was born from Jim's mothers old coat and a ping pong ball.  Piggy simply wouldn't or couldn't be piggy without this funny, good-natured frog as her foil.  In spite of the differences of being a frog and a pig, theirs was a love that knew no bounds.  "Never Before" became the anthem love song of a new age that expressed that even perfect love, like that spontaneously witnessed at the Miss Bogen County Beauty Contest, had complications, misunderstandings and incompatibilities.  Nevertheless, they made each other happy.  That always was the bottom line.

Kermit was also my first love.  Who wouldn't love him?!   His valiant efforts to embrace the chaos of "The Muppet Show," were always heralded with complete failure and yet he persevered.  Gonzo continued to blast out of cannons into unfortunate places in the studio.   Animal could not be contained and ate through the chair cushions.  Fozzy couldn't tell a good joke to save his life.  Guests stars were harrassed and harangued.  And on top of all of this, he was constantly being heckled by two geriatric men, looming in the balcony above him.  His was the job of the impossible--trying to contain life.

But to me, that was the greatest message of "The Muppet Show."  It's that life always went on.  That the chaos was, at best, barely manageable.  And that anything, if met with good friends and a lot of humor, was do-able.  It may come out as some motley ruin of what you expected it to be, but it DID COME OUT.  Kermit still went out at the beginning of every show, yelling with enthusiasm, and came out at the end, yelling with relief that it was done.  Somehow, the show still went on.  And in midst of that swirling, maddening chaos, there were moments of complete magic.  The moments couldn't be captured or bottled.  But they sprang up spontaneously: beautiful, hysterical and unimaginably great.  What a great metaphor for life.

Sitting down each evening in front of the TV at 6:30 pm during the 70's when "it's time to put on makeup" or "light the lights" may seem like a small thing.  But to me, it's been everything.  Like being in Honeydews lab with Beaker, it was the crazy explosion that lit up my life.  It was the magic--or at least the beginning of understanding what the magic felt and looked like.  It was laughter.  It was love.  It was life.

I may never have the chance to thank you personally Jim, but there is honestly almost never a day that goes by that I don't think of you and smile.  The precious gift of yourself that you shared with so many of us WAS the Rainbow Connection.   And all I can say, from the bottom of my Muppet loving heart, is thank you! "Kissy-kissy," always.