I’m also in the vulnerable age range but I’ve been to three BLM protests here in Providence. Almost everybody wore masks and I found I could maintain the 6' separation because, as I found out, if you move away from the center of the crowd any towards the outer edges that’s where the rest of the old people are, all cooperating with each other to maintain that magic 6’. That along with the fact that the protests take place outside helped me feel like a wasn’t being entirely crazy.

Plus I really wanted to go. There is no perfect safety so we make a choice based on how important the activity is vs how much risk we are willing to take on in order to do it. On an unrelated note, or that is a note that is related by the aforementioned mental and emotional risk calculation, a Gospel choir of which I am a member just wrapped up a rehearsal and recording session which I participated in. Exult Gospel Choir is based in a theater so it was relatively easy to set up a reasonably safe space. With the aid of headphones, microphones, and a sound board we were able to hear each other in the separated spaces.

I went in steeling myself that I would walk away from it if it did not seem sufficiently safe. Everyone has heard of the choir in Washington state which rehearsed back in the earlier days of the pandemic and in which a significant proportion of the members came down with COVID-19 and two died so it was no surprise that only a small portion of the regulars chose to participate, with the result that I was alone on my part but that’s Exult. You gotta be up for it — I hit it with my best shot. It turned out that my trust was not misplaced that is I felt safe enough. Of course it would have been safer to stay home but then I would have missed a wonderful experience plus let down my choir peeps* who would have had to scramble to come up with a tenor. When the recording is ready and I have a link I’ll write a nice article about the whole thing.

* Few things are more hateful to me that the thought of letting down my wonderful amazing choir peeps!