This Is Not a Test

The card arrived that day at the venue, not at home. It was from the Greater Topeka Partnership, a welcome addressed to Capitol Cotillion, delivered to the place where the program actually lives. It was not a form letter or a digital notification but something tangible, with a return address and a stamp, that had traveled to find us. Opening it in the ballroom before the families arrived was quite the feeling of wonder. Capitol Cotillion had a home in Topeka, and Topeka had written to say so.

Then the families came, and the evening was exactly what I’d dreamed it would be. The table was set and then seated. The event was worth dressing for, and they dressed for it. The room was beautiful, and they inhabited it. We talked and ate and danced in a room that asked something of everyone in it. Everyone rose to occasion.

That was the inaugural Fancy Dance in 2024. Children smiled on their way out the door and parents said encouraging things I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

My daughter, Rosemarie, had been in attendance, and she helped me pack up: the dishes, the flatware, the glassware, the serve ware, and the lesson supplies. We worked together until everything was tidied and clean, basking in the glow of the evening.

Then we danced one more song. We were dressed for it, the music was there, the room was beautiful, and the evening belonged to us now. So, I set my phone on a windowsill and took her by the hand. What happened next felt like living the end of the party scene in the Nutcracker Suite ballet. The way Clara’s parents steal a quiet pas de deux after the guests have left as the music dims and slows is choreographed to establish them as each other’s greatest priority and delight. Fancy Dance, for one last moment, became entirely ours.

Rosemarie was seven years old. She took the photo of me holding the welcome to the Greater Topeka Partnership. Her mother newly owned a business, which was the dinner and dancing party she’d just enjoyed. The whole thing had been as real an occasion of good company as any that had ever existed.

Season 1 was a small and wonderful thing held together by conviction and by the families who believed in it before it had any proof of itself. This Season, we welcome many new families across all programs. To the families who came first, who said kind things on the way out, who came back season after season, and who told their friends about it — thank you. To our new friends ready to join in the fun and bask in its glow — welcome. You are not just the reason Capitol Cotillion is thriving. You are the reason it was worth building in the first place.

This is not a test. Season 3 is rounding out class lists for grades 2 through 8. capitolcotilliontopeka.org

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