Kansas--My 15 year old daughter's prom tonight. Here, in this small village on the central Great Plains, proms are all-school affairs. Her dress is long and reddish pink. Her hair is all prom. I spend 90 minutes at her friend Taylor's house where there were eight high school girls and three adult women in a state of advanced makeup mode. Subway sandwiches and chips on a long counter. Styro cups and soda everywhere. Every girl in flip flops and sweats--all rushing to get the perfect look before rushing home to suit up.

Then over to Catherine's mother's house, where two girls, my daughter and her friend and housemate the Japanese exchange student, awaited their dates. The dates appeared in outsized rural America pickups. Awkward corsage and boutonniere ritual. I gave a 21st century version of the father's dire warning to the young men, who looked completely responsible as far as I'm concerned.

So now they are at the dinner. Later I will catch up for the grand march. After that it's a long evening and night, for in the manner of rural America there is an after-prom party at the last picture show theater. I don't expect to see my child until ca. 4 a.m. She'll sleep in endlessly tomorrow, of course.

I'm so proud of my child. She is smart, grounded, sensible, funny, careful, healthy, pretty. She doesn't take things too seriously, but she is totally alive to the joy and adventure of life. She knows this is not her final zipcode, and she is making her decisions with her long term interests in mind.

And yet on an evening like this I remember when she fit snugly in my arms. I used to sit on a rocking chair with a pillow on my lap, and she fit entirely onto the pillow. Now she is a young woman. I know it is merely a matter of time before she walks through all the doors of adulthood. And I want her to make that walk, but not impetuously.

So I will spend the evening working. In my mother's day, the parents gave the daughter a dime so she could call for a ride if she needed one. Now I'm more likely to get a text than a call, and the text is more likely to be in a "chill out, dad" code than anything that would feed my anxious spirit.