Saturday night my son and I went to hear a live outdoor performance of Brazilian jazz trio. We heard about the gig from the drummer, a slight acquaintance of mine whose regular gig at a local resort had been suspended for almost an entire year.

The scene was an outdoor space dotted with tables and patio heaters, a courtyard behind the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, an institution which is perhaps misnamed. An entire room is devoted to the ubiquitous hand with a mouth, tongue extended, on its palm. There’s also a large exhibition of collage, and a collection of creations of local residents using single categories of objects, for example, paper napkins.

Also abutting the courtyard is a collection of restaurants and a bar known for its craft cocktails, another specialty of SC. Add a small stage and voila: a great spot for grabbing some food and drinks and listening to music. The band included a singer–live singing, no barricades, no mask! The drummer and bassist also did not wear masks while on stage. The music was fantastic, and you could see how much they enjoyed creating it in the normal way, by the expressions on their actual faces.

Since people don’t wear masks while eating or drinking, and many didn’t wear masks while dancing, it was at best a 50% mask-wearing event, making it at least 50% normal. It’s so much fun to listen to live music with other people, even it you don’t know them, and so relaxing and joy-provoking to see smiles instead of smizes.

The crowd scene included

• a dancing woman wearing an elaborate, possibly Brazilian, embroidered, ball-length dress with matching gloves and mask;
• a woman pushing a pink baby carriage containing a small dog and walking another on a leash, all three of them wearing elaborate pink outfits and looking quite smug;
• a fellow doing some fancy footwork while wearing roller skates, and again later without;
• two men with seven boys ranging in age from 7 to 11 or so–dads squiring a birthday party? After everyone ate, the boys ran round and round the plaza while the men drank wine; and
• lots of energetic twenty-somethings who, during one extended instrumental break, took turns filming each other dancing on stage, to the apparent delight of the musicians.

The evening was balmy, and during the second set the lights came on. Such small things, things once common that now seem magical–and yet normal.

My husband was feeling under the weather, so I ordered take-home for him just before we left. Maybe it was the two craft cocktails, but when I returned to the restaurant to pick up the order I completely forgot to don my own mask, which I had remembered when I ordered. I nosed around until I found the pickup area, exchanged my flashing disk for a bag, and left without getting any indication from anyone that I was anything other than…..

Normal!