A monologue - Ugly, old frogs
UGLY OLDER FROGS
(A confident life coach is presenting to her “60 plus” online group. Behind her is a screen/sheet with positive images. She speaks enthusiastically, matching her enthusiastic lip gloss and releasing from an enthusiastic yoga standing pose.)
Yes and stretch, come on, our final stretch. Doesn’t that feel amazing? Aren’t we lucky to be alive? Say it out loud, to yourself, to your heart. (Loudly and passionately.) We are 60 plus and we feel good. (Beat.) You know, my beautiful people that physical strength will reward you. Age is nothing but opportunity. Stop watching Netflix and eating Oreos, let’s get moving. There are miracles still out there. Never shy away. Thank you for joining me, tomorrow we will do meditative dancing to Sinatra and I will share my “Move It” Diet for Over Sixties. “What goes in with ease, can always come out with ease.” For now, have a wonderful day and remember “Be Everything You Still Can Be.”
(Blowing a kiss, she clicks the camera off. Her entire demeanor slowly changes as she pulls down the sheet backdrop to reveal a small and very messy room. Wiping her lip gloss on the back of her hand, she sits without grace, leaning to the camera.)
I’m going to pretend to still be doing a recording, because I can hear my husband screaming from the other room. He’s painting stone frogs for our patio, to give them, he says, more personality. (Pause.) Stone fucking frogs for the patio! (Leaning down, she grabs a loaf of precut white bread and eats slices aggressively.)
Those frogs are plain ugly. They have bulging eyes. They don’t need personality. They need blowing up. And our patio does not need further decoration. The plastic gnomes on the plastic swing set are enough! Plus yellow tiles leading to a fountain, really?!
(Eating more bread.)
I should be happy. I finally have the time to launch my life coaching business. All my life I wanted to do this, to share my ideas and go for my dream. Isn’t it worth more now that I’m over sixty? Even Oprah should be inspired. She couldn’t start a career now, or buy a school or a tv network. It’s easy to be vulnerable when you’re identified as a strong personality. (Beat.) What’s the point of delving into who we are, when you discover, after dreaming, the dreams were all there was! Nothing else. You want to provide the inspiration, and then realize you’ve never actually felt it yourself. (Beat and eating more bread.) Now I’m finally being me, and I have so very little to say. Who am I really, beneath this? I think all the living, and the dreaming and the waiting, squeezed my soul dry.
(Pause.)
My husband decided this was the time to relight our marriage. He has launched himself into every hobby he had ever wanted to try. Last week his thumb was glued to a model airplane wing, which then got stuck on the cats head. He took up French, which inspired a phase of cooking fish and pretending to be my personal chef with “benefits”. You don’t want to know the benefits, him naked with a wooden spatula is not a good image. We’ve had painting, memoir writing, masculine knitting (it’s not) and Broadway jazz for the elderly.
Every day he’s on Amazon, EBay and Etsy. Apparently he’s building New York City in our basement. Why not fix the leak in the foundation down there? But oh no – we need Times Square and the Statue of Liberty made from popsicle sticks and wrapping paper.
I am so done. I pretend to do my morning yoga. I hate yoga. But it gives me an hour alone in the bathroom where I watch Hulu with my earphones on and eat donuts. My only joy is Grubhub back door delivery, I have my own supplier!
My neighbor, younger than me, died. (Pause.) Age has nothing to do with death. Getting old is a privilege.
(Pause.)
So, I started my online business, while he, husband of the year, taught the parrot to say “I hate a soggy bottom” – which it does, in a British accent, regularly. (She screams and stamps her feet like a little kid having a tantrum.) And I want a cigarette! (She stops.)
There are mornings I wake and I picture myself grabbing the matches, and lighting them one by one, and watching the whole damn world burn! (She stops suddenly, takes a very deep breath.) I beg for the night to swallow me whole and then I wait until the sun rises and I do it all again. (Beat.) And I pretend to be happy. Pretend to be something and I pretend not to be waiting for the end.
(She listens to something being shouted at her from her husband.) Yes, yes! I’m coming, I’m coming. (Sarcastically.) Yes I can’t wait to play Greek restaurant with sexy waiter…again…and yes you can show me your lovely frogs….the psycho, sadistic, ugly, pathetic, embarrassing, pointless, stupid patio frogs.
(She applies more lip gloss, and rolls her shoulders as though preparing to go into battle.)
I have started to inject alcohol into my lip gloss. It is my only hope! (Sarcastically.) Be everything you still can be, yeah right!
©Jayne Hannah