the art of holding hands

Last night my husband & I went to see the Ryan Adams concert at Red Butte Gardens. Ryan Adams is a prolific young singer/songwriter. I have 4 of his cds; that doesn't even scratch the surface of what he has released. I only knew about 5 of the songs he played. That's unusual for me. Usually when I go to a concert I know pretty much every song that will be played. I don't know if that's even possible for anyone at a Ryan Adams show.

We'd never been to a show at Red Butte Gardens. The Gardens are up on a hillside in the University area of Salt Lake City. It's really beautiful up there. The views of the valley are gorgeous. There is an amphitheater area for concerts. It's general admission, and you are allowed to bring blankets or low lawn chairs and coolers with (gasp) adult beverages! (Very unusual in Utah.) We got there pretty late and had to find a space to squeeze into. We were on a bit of a hill and there was a small tree that partially obscured my view of the stage. It was ok because Ryan sat back with the band the entire time (as far as I could tell) and just played his heart out. So The Man & I watched people while we enjoyed the music and the beautiful night.

We were sitting close (but not too close) to the bathrooms, so there was ample opportunity to watch the people. Man, there was quite a variety of folks at this show. There were students, couples of all orientations, families, various styles of dress - I saw 3 guys in skirts! - and lots of tattoos, it was amazing! Once there were 2 pretty girls that walked by holding hands. The Man asked me if I thought they were lesbians. They were both wearing 4" wedge heels, tight pencil-leg jeans, camis under long sleeve silky shirts and had beautiful long straight hair. They are not lesbians, I told The Man. He wanted to know how I knew. I explained they were holding hands in the I'm-going-to-the-bathroom-stay-with-me way. I pointed out some families with little kids. The parents were holding the children's hands the same way. "Lovers intertwine their fingers and arms," I told The Man. We looked at some couples and he had to agree. And to admit he didn't know the etiquette of hand-holding with your sweetheart.

What you can take from this story is that we don't hold hands too often. I still love him though!