Illustration by Naomi Ann Clarke
My driving commute takes me through a school zone, where the other day I saw a man on foot about to enter the crosswalk with his child. As he stepped into the street, he lifted his hand into the air. With an open palm toward me, he extended his arm at shoulder height and kept it there as he crossed the street. I recognized the man’s wave. I too have made it. When I wave like he did, I think I am communicating at least four things.
First, like all waves, this wave is an acknowledgment of sharing space: “Hello. There you are. Here I am.” The static open palm held aloft is a lazy wave. At what point in our lives did we learn that this is an acceptable way to greet someone? We teach babies to wave by lifting their arms and opening and closing their fingers. Over time, the wave evaporates to a shadow of itself: simply a raised open palm. The adult wave is uninterested in garnishes. It says, I’ve lifted my hand in the air for you — isn’t that good enough? Don’t ask me to do any tricks. That day, it was 7:30 a.m., and I empathized with the man crossing the street; his mind was probably already full with the day’s tasks. Although he gave me only the barest requisite of a wave, I give him full credit.
Second, this wave says, “thank you.” It acknowledges a service provided: You are stopping your large motor vehicle to allow me, a vulnerable pedestrian, to cross. “Thank you” is a common message of waves. It is the message of one neighbor to another: “Thank you for bringing my mail in while I was out of town,” or “Thank you for rolling my recycling bin up the driveway.” When cars stop, pedestrians sometimes scurry across a street to show their gratitude. It’s like a checkout transaction: the car’s stopping is the presentation of the bill; the flurry of steps is the tinkling of return change.
The third meaning is similar to the second, with an important tweak: “Thank you in advance.” My brother Emmett did not like it when a priest announcing the second collection at Mass would say, “Thank you in advance for your generosity.” I assume he didn’t like the presumption. Gratitude, Emmett intuited, should follow a gift. It’s this anticipatory thankfulness the raised hand communicates: Thank you in advance not only for slowing down but for coming to a full stop.
The street-crossing edicts of childhood mellow as we reach adulthood: “Look left, look right, look left again, make sure no cars are coming,” slides into “If any cars are coming, make sure they are approaching slowly and appear ready to stop completely.” We never formally learned to cross a street while a vehicle was still moving toward us; rather, we picked it up from our unofficial curriculum somewhere along life’s way.
The fourth thing the wave says is the most primitive: Notwithstanding the pleasantries, if you proceed to roll your vehicle toward me, I am going to protect my vital organs. An outstretched arm is a defensive posture. It’s the Heisman Trophy pose, a stiff-armed protection of a good — the football, or in this case, the child. The open palm functions like a stop sign a road engineer raises to halt traffic.
That’s it. That’s the wave I got as I dutifully brought my car to a stop and the man and his daughter crossed the street. The static wave is not an attention-seeking wave. It is not a taxi-flagging wave. It is not a teacher-call-on-me wave. It is neither a we-could-use-some-more-coffee-here wave, nor a we’re-ready-for-the-check-now wave. It is a practical, efficient wave that says several things at once, at least four of which I could count on my hand that morning.
Is there a fifth thing that wave is saying? Perhaps. Perhaps the language of hand signals is evolving. Maybe the science needs a new generation to study it. Maybe the child who was holding on to her father’s other hand will learn that science, discover its uncharted nuances, then translate and share them with strangers of her future. Maybe that’s why she was on her way to school.
Erin Buckley lives in Richmond, Virginia, where she works as an occupational therapist.