We are now in Stage 3 of Ontario's Roadmap to Reopen, the last stage of the gradual lifting of the restrictions imposed by Public Health. This stage is expected to last 21 days. After that, I expect everything will be open, but I'm sure there will continue to be some restrictions. Won't there? Can we really go back to the way we were? Do we want to?
The reopening webpage says that we can now gather socially indoors and outdoors, 25 indoors and 100 outdoors, and events can be up to 50% capacity indoors and 75% outdoors! That's amazing.
This past Saturday night, I went to hear a band playing live at a restaurant, outdoors under a tent. It was fantastic! People mostly kept their distance, and when walking about we all wore masks. We danced! There was a space in front of the band for dancing and not many people danced, but I just had to! It felt special and wonderful. I also forgot to put my mask on to speak to our server and didn't notice until after. People were not wearing masks at tables but the wait staff did. It was somehow not strange. I thought I'd be more nervous about it. I wasn't. I plan to go out more frequently now that I'm not working and I really badly want to hear more live music. Please make some suggestions.
I really, really want to get together for a summer rehearsal with as many choir folk as we can. I want to sing with you and I'm trying to figure out how to make it happen.
There's nothing specific about singing in a choir in the guidelines. There was a lot of fuss about droplets and singing or talking loudly at the beginning of the pandemic. I guess we'll see. I think we might want to wear masks and/or face shields so that we can sit/stand closer together, but maybe we just need to space ourselves further apart. In any case, we won't be doing Zoom! Yay!
We'll have a plan for how best to get together for rehearsals in the fall. We'll have to follow whatever rules our rehearsal space and concert venue have. Something I'm planning for our concert is to have a shorter concert with no intermission, at least for December. That way we don't have to worry about the bake sale or about people gathering with no social distancing possible. I'm looking into getting a projector and screen to take to seniors' homes so we don't have to hand out the sing-along duotangs. There will be some changes at choir at first, and maybe some of the changes will stick. We can and should be open to doing things differently.
Change is difficult, but it's something we are always dealing with in life. I know there will be some positive new things happening for us in the future, the near future and the distant future. We are lucky to be such in such a good, supportive group of people in the YRCC.
I'm currently going through the big change of being retired. It's not really retirement, but I'm not working at my job anymore and I don't want to go back to that lifestyle. You can read about it here, in my blog post on my other blog, Old Pollyanna. And, this change in my life has me thinking about getting older and entering retirement age, becoming a senior myself. If you're interested, you can read my recent post on Slow Ageing. Many people in the choir are retired or living with a retired partner. I'd love to hear about the how you managed the transition. You all seem so positive and youthful. I think maybe part of that is because I always see you at choir, which is a special thing, but I know that you are people who can teach me about being positive and strong and happy.
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