Ride the Wave!

I have been ripping off the nice people of St. Louis. Yes, that’s right ... ripping them off. I have not been waving the right way. It hit me today when I let a driver make a left turn in front of me and she waved. It was not just a quick rise and fall of the hand. No, it was a full wave and a smile. The wave was long. It was committed. It married me.

Everyone waves like that here. The wave is happy and long and vigorous. It’s got meaning. It comes with eye contact. It says, “hi, how are you ... it’s nice to see you ... are you doing ok ... that’s a nice car you’re driving ... can I borrow a cup of sugar ... did we go to high school together?” The wave has to be long because it has a lot to say. And, long it is. Picture a side-to-side motion with a wide open hand, repeated at least eight times.

And, everyone waves. They wave if they recognize you. Come to think of it, they wave if they don’t recognize you. My neighbours wave to me on the street. They wave to me from their cars when they can’t possibly know who I am. There is a lot of waving here. I don’t know why lawmakers in this state banned texting for drivers under 21; this waving business takes your hands off the wheel and eyes off the road for minutes at a time!

I’m rather fascinated by non-verbal communication. I love how it can cross great distances and even languages. Picture the signalman waving flags on a ship, or a conductor leading his orchestra, or the batting coach in baseball calling for a bunt. Baseball -- now those are crazy signs! It’s like trying to work out a logic puzzle to guess what the waves, shirt brushing, ear tugs and hat adjustments mean in that game! To complicate it, those guys are always adjusting their own equipment too, if you know what I mean!

Sign language is a great example of non-verbal communication. When we were younger, my sister and I taught ourselves some basic sign language and then got thrown out of math class when the Neanderthal teacher caught us “talking” to each other. He would have been even madder if he’d known what we were saying...! Oh well, lesson learned! Some hand gestures are not safe.

Another one that’s unsafe in some places is the thumb, as we discovered once in Venice. My husband and son were giving vigorous “thumbs up” approval signs to all the slick taxi boats they saw while we were speeding along in our own wood-paneled craft. I was in the front, so I didn’t see them and it took me awhile to turn around and see that the cause of the other drivers yelling and gesturing very rudely at us was my little family. You see, in some places, a quick thumb up is equivalent to our middle finger (“stick it up your...!”). Lovely.

Anyway, I think we’re safe with the good old-fashioned wave. I’m trying hard to wave, much to my daughter’s deep embarrassment. She says I wave back at people who were not actually waving at me. She’s trying to help me, though. When you’re eleven, you want to fit in and conform. That means not wanting to wear a paper bag over your head when your mother is with you! So, she wants me to stop waving at complete strangers and stop giving the peace sign, which I was not aware I was doing. Apparently, I wave with just two fingers: the pointer and the middle one, held in a quick but definite “V” – the universal peace sign. She thinks that’s just plain weird.

Wow, it’s going to be hard to fit in here! My noncommittal flick of the hand must go! I need to use all digits on my hand to prove my full engagement. And, I need to make the wave last a long time to show my earnestness. I must linger. I must engage. I must wave with feeling!