prom

So I guess I should say something about prom. I don't really know what to say, though. Here's a picture of me and Stephanie, looking pretty awesome. What you can't see in the picture is my awesome cranberry/merlot/burgandy cummerbund. To me, nothing really says prom like a cummerbund. Except maybe a stretch limo with kids sticking their heads out the top. Or a gym decked out in some terrible streamers and cardboard carousel horses. Or boys and girls out on painfully shy dates at fancy restaurants looking embarrassed about the whole thing.

I have to say: prom as a dorky grown-up was a lot more fun than prom as a dorky kid. Back then, prom was such an effort not to be a dork--at least for me, it was. But the Pretty in Prom fundraiser for the local ballet group (Ballet 7220) was apparently just a chance for most of us adults to fully embrace the dork-ness (dorkiness? dorkdom?) that we never grew out of.

Going to prom, though, reminds me of some things I'd forgotten about. Like how much time I spent washing the car before prom. A trip to Spearfish for dinner in the big town. The feeling that the last days of senior year were the glory days that we'd never manage to live up to again, that it would never be as good as it was then. Complete, blissful, angst-filled naivety about love and romantic relationships. A herd of really good friends.

It was fun to talk to other people at the fundraiser about their high school prom experiences. The Big Dance is one of those rites of passage that seems like it would be more or less the same for everybody, but somehow it also manages to become one of those incredibly unique lived experiences. A common ground, experienced differently for each participant. I think we need to preserve rituals like this, if only to be able to recognize the contrasts.