The Wave

In GroveAtopia we have a ritual called The Wave. It is not the wave most people think of. It is not the one people do at stadiums where they stand in successive sections creating what looks like a human wave moving through the crowd.

No. GroveAtopia's wave is different.

If you have been in a car in GroveAtopia you know the wave. It is what you do when you see someone you know in another car. You wave.

Usually it is a driver-to-driver wave. I don't think I've ever seen a passenger-to-passenger or driver-to-passenger or passenger-to-driver wave. But that may be because I am always the driver and I really only have time to wave to another driver.

Come to think of it just today I did wave to a passenger. I waved to a boy I know. But he was in the back seat of a parked car and I was on foot. That's different.

The wave I'm talking about is the one we all do in GroveAtopia as we slowly drive the streets making our way to wherever we are going. If you know the driver of a car, and you catch their eye, or they catch yours, you wave.

Some of routine routes we take are fraught with the wave. You see the same people every morning, you know their cars, you see them coming, you catch their eye, you wave. Sometimes you find yourself waving so much you think about getting one of those window decals that constantly waves, but you know that just isn't the same as a real live wave.

There are times when I don't feel like waving. I am grumpy or distracted or I just don't want to do it. But then here comes your friend, and you know you must wave. So you do, and afterward you feel better.

Once one of my passengers had quite enough of my waving. It was a particularly wave-laden morning and fully exasperated, he said, "I wish we lived in a big city where no one knows us so you wouldn't have to wave all the time!"

But he is young and doesn't yet appreciate the wave. One day, when he grows up and has had his fill of the anonymity of the big city, he will think back and remember his younger days when he was the passenger in a car where the driver and those they passed waved to each other for no reason other than they knew each other.

Those waves are our way of greeting each other without stopping to have a conversation. The wave is the conversation, and short as it is, it says all that needs to be said.