Freeze Frame

My swing is standing out front, covered in perfumed jasmine blooms, with no beautiful people flanking its sides. There are no fairy-tale-like scenes of handsome prince’s and beautiful princess’s dodging raindrops, humidity, gnats, or the blistering sun.

There are no fella’s with tuxes and cowboy boots looking as if they have smiled their last smile, and no more mother’s waiting for that perfect moment to snap the perfect memory picture of all time.

I’ll admit, I’m being a little dramatic, because all of those things ARE still happening, they’re just not happening to me.

So do you know what the people of proms-gone-past do on nights like this? Well, we ride to Lowes at 5:30 in the evening to look for MORE flowers that we probably don’t really need. We wander around the garden section hoping that the distraction of assorted flowers and greenery will get us past this moment of feeling left out and lost.

And it does for a little while, until the ride home, when we pass two different limousines headed in the same direction, which can ONLY mean, someone is riding in style to the prom tonight.  Because I promise you, there is never any other need for two limousines to travel to Quincy Florida on a Saturday night, other than prom.

After we got home we unloaded our little pots of happiness but decided we would wait until the morning to drag out shovels and hoes. However, my husband was still restless, so he set about washing his truck for the work week ahead.

I came on inside, opened up my laptop, intending to begin this column to you all, trying to describe my feelings of sheer desolation, but instead, I segued into a look at Face Book first.

And oh my goodness at all the beautiful, suddenly grown-up people I found in my news

feed. Now you have to know, that everyone I’m looking at tonight is at least three years or more, younger than my last- to-graduate high school child. So I’m really trying to figure out who all these “babies” are and when did they become such beautiful human beings?!

I can’t even imagine the shock that was surely on my face as I scrolled through picture after picture of stunningly elegant gowns and tuxes, with beautiful young people wearing them.  

After several minutes of scrolling and commenting, I came back to this article, tried to write some more, but was still too distracted. So I got out of my recliner, gathered-up my camera, and headed outside.

I might not have any pretty people to photograph, but you’d have been hard-pressed not to wonder if I wasn’t someone famous out there snapping shots as I practically lounged across the curb, leaning in awkward positions, one foot on the ground, one pirouetting ballerina-style, trying to reach the blooms at the top of a branch, or on my knees, scrunched down so far I was practically nose to dirt for my up-close shot of an about-to-be rose bloom.

Our prom days are over – but Better Homes and Garden ain’t got nothing on me!


copyright 2016 Michelle Mount Mims
Also previously published @ The Havana Herald