I'm Adali Maum and this is The Slowdown.

There's something so ache-inducing about remembering those early dates when I was too young to

know what a date even was. The awkward movie date in high school where you weren't sure if you

were supposed to hold hands or just eat popcorn in silence. Do you touch knees? What about the tips

of your shoes? Who's paying for the snacks? What movie isn't awkward to watch when you're a teenager

and everything is awkward to watch when everything at all is awkward? I remember on one of my very first

dates we bought pints of ice cream from the 7-11 and climbed on top of an old train in Depot Park

and ate our separate pints of ice cream and looked at the stars. It was actually a pretty good date

when I think about it. Ice cream and a train and stars? There wasn't much to do as teenagers

in my small town. Mainly we sat in one park or another and ate something or just sat on the swings

and talked. No one had money to go to a fancy restaurant on the plaza so we existed on cheap

snacks from 7-11 or ice cream from the creamery and free public spaces. What strikes me now,

all these years later, is how young we were to think we knew enough to even go on a date.

Of course, back then I thought I knew more than I did. I probably thought eating ice cream on top

of the stationary train in the park at night was what everyone did on dates. When we finally got

cars we'd go down to Denny's or Lions which was sort of like Denny's and eat pancakes for dinner

and drink coffee as if life hadn't wired us tight enough already. To think of it now, I missed those

moments. Those times when we didn't know if it was a date or a new friendship or just an excuse to

eat sugar and laugh. Today's poem recalls an early date with all its awkward insecurities

and how often what we remember about those early years is not the person we were with but the person

we were becoming. Romance is in the air by Danny Kane. Romance is in the air and in this cup

taste for yourself. At Dairy Queen 630 p.m. January 29th 2019.

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