Seeing and being seen

This summer I have tried to make it a practice to take a morning walk through my neighborhood. It's time I spend listening to the long list of podcast episodes that have been piling up, and hopefully, gain some level of physical and mental benefit.

Morning walks are glorious. The air is cooler, the sun keeps inching out, and frequently, there's a cool breeze before the day starts taking on heat. I love walking past the cow pasture, the dogs, the little kids out playing. I love the wind moving the leaves and branches of the trees, the amazing fragrance as I walk by blooming flowers, shrubs, trees and freshly-mowed lawns. When someone is making bacon with the windows open, it's a huge bonus. I practically skip.

What I love most is the waving. I live in the Midwest, so car waves are common. When I first moved to Iowa, my husband and I always laughed about the different car waves you see.

There's the one-finger wave (no, not that one): Common among farmers, it involves one of the index fingers being raised from the steering wheel in greeting.

There's the two-finger wave: Same idea, but it's the first and second finger. Bus drivers seem to like that one.

There's the high five spread: That's when the whole hand comes off the wheel. The hand spreads, much like a starfish, and is held stationary until the car passes.

There's the finger flip: It's a more refined wave - hand off the wheel with the thumb out and four fingers bobbing up and down.

The back and forth five: Hand off the wheel, with the hand pivoting back and forth from the wrist.

And the full on, break your arm, so excited to see you wave: It probably doesn't need a description other than that. That's usually from people you know well.

This morning, I paid more attention than I usually do, and realized that every single vehicle that passed me waved to me in one of the aforementioned formats. Every single one.

It got me thinking about the motivation behind the waving. Certainly it's the friendly Midwest culture. I've always loved that about living here. When I was visiting my family on the East Coast, my mom once rebuked me when we were in New York City saying, "Will you stop saying hi to everyone? They're going to think you're nuts!" My brother can't understand it when I strike up conversations with people at the grocery store. "You don't even know them!" he says. "Well, they may know if the peaches are mealy," I respond. They're usually happy to tell me.

I like to think the car waves are about connection. Jim, who is a former UPS driver, says he used to wave as a safety measure. "That way, people know that I see them and I'm paying attention."

It makes sense from a safety perspective, but it's also a lovely thought. Nowadays, we're more connected than we've ever been, but I still talk with people who feel like they're not being seen, heard and understood. They're dismissed almost immediately when they express a thought or philosophy that might be in disagreement with someone else.

I need to say that this rarely happens face-to-face. It's mainly done via news media, social media and the comments section. It's expressed via memes and flippant tweets or posts, all of which marginalize complex beings into one-sided puppets who are complete idiots. I took part in a recent Facebook conversation when one person posted an apology about a comment that might have been misunderstood. The person responded, "I stopped listening to you a long time ago." It didn't involve me, but it still made me feel like shit, so I can't imagine how the person trying to apologize felt.

I commented to Laura over coffee that a lot of those types of posts and comments have a person behind them that is managing a hurt that has absolutely nothing to do with what they're expressing. I tested this theory by reaching out to a few and saying, "tell me what you meant by that." After a few minutes, it was evident that their views weren't all that different from mine. They're just searching for ways to be heard.

But, what if ...

What if we employed Jim's philosophy to our interactions with one another?

What if we started with a wave that indicates "I see you - I'm paying attention."

Think of how much happier we would be if we saw each other and actually felt like we were being seen?

What if the process of healing our aching hearts and fractured nation starts with a wave?

I see you.