Awards season

I haven't won any awards lately but when someone remarks that I look fabulous I have to pause for a reality check. Do they really mean it? How long since I last saw them? Have I done anything particular that day to set myself off from an ordinary appearance? Do I look so dreadful that someone feels compelled to compliment me in order to buck up my spirits? Am I near death? What about my shoes? Has my personal assistant sabotaged me because I failed to acknowledge her new hairdo? These are all red carpet thoughts, which though unspoken, must race through the minds of honorees posing in front of photographers. It is really only me from Euphoria, South Carolina after all. Those poor people who swagger and swan must feel utterly false if they give any credence to the praise and adulation fairly shouted at them. Still, a statuette is a nice memento. I like to think that they take it all in as a necessary procession of vanity for the sake of job security. What's wrong with that?

The “awards season”, now in full force, is such a peculiar time. In fact it is a bit of a silly season. It intervenes in that slack time between New Year's and the next traditional family holiday which used to be Valentine's Day. Now the Super Bowl has insinuated itself into that space in a hyperattenuated one day orgy of concussions and fast food. At least two and perhaps three generations of Americans now worship at its gladiatorial altar so it must be important. If nothing else it has given us the best day for travel in the whole year. If it were around today, the cover of The Saturday Evening Post would portray Grandma and Grandpa lovingly passing the salsa dip and pizza slices to their adoringly distracted grandchildren, whose attention is charmingly diverted by the enormous wide screen television. That's a real holiday tableau, with their lively spaniel Tippy slyly harvesting errant chip morsels from under the sofa!

But “awards season” lingers for weeks, one event closely following another, as if the news cycle is on a continuous loop. This hypnotic cavalcade of over-the-top appearances has all the allure of a July parade without the floats. Our attention is focused on clothing, shoes and hairstyles if not the recognition of actual talent. Testing the limits of good taste is a recreational effort for the gods and goddesses who seem entirely at ease with the concept of competition in the “arts”. If it weren't for the rigors of the calendar and the annualization of these events, the presenters might as well forget about rolling out the red carpet and just leave it in place. Take it up for an occasional dry cleaning and be done with it! We love our stars, the royalty of this nation.

Then again, a simply sincere compliment can offer a precious lifeline to someone who needs it. It doesn't have to be agreed upon by a committee of peers or industry specialists; it just has to come from a place of truth and unselfishness and be offered without a hidden agenda. It might be a good practice to look for opportunities every day to recognize someone. It might not be in front of millions of people but in its exchange there may a richness and a reward that is incalculably more worthy.

Smoochies, Celeste