“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 900 (Saturday) – alone in a crowd

While I may be an expert at scheduling photo shoots and good at managing project timelines and the various project moving parts at work, it is a different story altogether in the social side of life. Thought goes into imaging having plans with friends, but the follow-through in making real-life plans is usually lacking. Maybe because of all the timeline management and planning done at work, it's the last thing I want to do outside work.

Recently, my piss-poor personal planning meant having Music Series tickets in hand all summer and failing to make plans to see a show. Usually, a couple friends and I go to a show, and choosing is easy because there is generally something we all want to see. This year, none of us were especially hot to see anything in the lineup and the choice of show was delegated to me. Oops. The next thing we knew, it was the last show of the season and my friends weren’t available.

Determined not to waste the tickets, I headed out at 7:45 Saturday morning to make a real estate claim at Boarding House Park for that final show. While spreading my flamingo patterned beach blanket on the grass in the low chair area, there was singing. A few seconds later, a woman in a green dress appeared on the stage, pacing and singing. It wasn’t loud, but it was nice. As I was leaving, she seemed to be practicing a confident strut down the center line of the stage. If the car hadn’t been boldly parked in a clearly marked “No Parking” zone with Winston in it for my two-minute real estate transaction, I might have stayed to watch/cheer her on.

Before it got dark and chilly.

Between the land grab and the show sat a span of about 12 hours. The time was spent relaxing and then jumping up to do house chores. A pale purple mum bought a couple weeks ago was planted. Weeds were pulled. Canine Overlord land mines were harvested. A trip to Ocean State Job Lot in Tewksbury yielded another mum for the yard, which was planted immediately. I forgot to do my Duolingo Finnish lesson.

Back at the park for the show, the sun was setting and the darkness brought cooler air. The lineup was two bands with blues music. At intermission, having recieved the nightly reminder, the forgotten Finnish lesson was completed.

By 9:00 I was past chilly and approaching cold despite having layered a shirt, light hoodie and jean jacket. Luckily, the blanket was large enough that I could wrap it over myself while in my chair. It helped, for a while anyway and then it was 65 degrees and I was too cold and plotting my escape, which didn’t happen until right before what was declared to be the last song. 

It wasn’t the first concert attended solo, and as a result of the previous shows, the extreme self-consciousness was gone. The cover of darkness helped to not feel so conspicuous, too. Conquering feeling alone in a crowd has been an ongoing life goal. Now there is a new goal of expanding the social contacts to have people to call on short notice for activities.