My toe’s red carpet debut

Time to break out the happy dance, dear friends. I got to scratch something off my bucket list. I was invited to an old Hollywood-style red carpet event — the Real Deal where if I were to stumble either clumsily or on purpose, I would be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Jeff Bridges, Billy Crystal, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Sean Penn.

Along the way, I learned something not only about the fulfillment of long-held fantasies, but about the joy of the fully lived life. For as it turns out there were three distinct and instructive categories of attendees, ranging from the sublime to the wretched. Which category you were in would have less to do with whether you were a star, support staff or guest, and everything to do with what you carried in your heart to this event.

Before I outline the three categories, I’d like to announce the occasion for the philosophical ruminations to come. The envelope please! No, not the Emmies. No, not the Oscars. It was AARP The Magazine’s Movies for Grownups® – AARP’s surprisingly stellar 2010 Gala, held February 16 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, at the foot of Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles.

As a Vibrant Woman 50+, I loved every minute of it! The majority of nominees and winners in attendance were, shall we say, age-friendly. The only reminders of youth-obsessed Young Hollywood, strutting their way down the red carpet chest and bare thighs first, were the young second, third or fourth wives of aging B-level stars. Most everybody else lived up to the event’s title: looking and acting like grown-ups, albeit glamorous ones.

Having had a relatively recent experience playing dress-up as mother of the groom, I dug into my closet, trusting that I could fake myself into the fashion ballpark without having to mortgage anything to get ready for my red carpet moment. My goal: not to compete with star power, but rather, that I wouldn’t inadvertently end up finding myself in some magazine under the headline “What Not to Wear.”

Imagine my delight when none other than Morgan Fairchild ratified my choice of attire as she, too, showed up at the gala wearing a gold jacket. Hers was over shiny gold lame slinky pants while mine was over a draped brown cocktail dress. Double the application time and amount of makeup as usual, a pair of high heels that look amazing and feel just as great for about ten minutes, and I was red carpet ready.

The event did not disappoint. There, indeed, was the archetypal red carpet and above it, a bank of more paparazzi, camera operators and reporters than I could count: flashbulbs popping like firecrackers on the Fourth of July. There was also a sharp, young woman dressed in black and carrying a clipboard, kindly but firmly blocking entrance to the red carpet, indicating that my splendid husband and I were to step behind the bank of lights, and circle back around in order to make way for the real celebrities.

And in that moment of pause, dazzled against the flashing lights, I saw the three categories suddenly pass before my eyes:

1. Category one: The players.
   People for whom attending, whatever their age or star power, was a career opportunity. We’re talking A,B and C level stars of all ages, spouses with aspirations, directors, producers and the upwardly mobile of all description. These people may have had the biggest smiles and/or the coolest demeanors, but better believe—kiss kiss—they were working it.
2. Category two: The good soldiers.
   People for whom attending was a duty and who didn’t bother to fake it. This category was overweighed on two extremes: those handful of A list stars who had been ordered to attend and for whom red carpet galas was simply a job, and the publicists and journalists whose task it is to attend these types of gala affairs many times a week, and for whom even lobster bites in pastry shell have lost their luster.
3. Category three: the lucky dweebs.
   People, like my husband and me, who had no agendas to work, no duties to fulfill — and for whom an encounter with star power, glamour and not only those adorable lobsters in pastry crusts but medium rare, pepper-encrusted baby lamb chops—was a complete gas!

In the moment, I didn’t need anything more to feel completely satisfied with life. But on the way to the ladies room between dinner and desert, I found myself suddenly alone with the red carpet. Cameras tucked away. A stray napkin here and there. My shoes spontaneously scattered about.

As it turns out, it had never actually been about walking the red carpet that was the item on my bucket list I had always wanted to cross off. Rather, it was getting to a moment in my life that was neither upwardly mobile nor jaded; a moment where I could touch the glamour of ultimates without getting swept up by them. A moment without agendas, to-do’s or wanna be’s.

To make a long story short, I never actually did walk the red carpet. But that’s okay. My big toe seized the moment to touch upon the iconic path of red, and led me through one heck of a happy dance!