On the Trail, We Wave

This morning, I was hiking with a friend when a truck came slowly down the trail.

The driver waved to us.

We waved back.

Then another truck passed, slowly making its way along the dusty road. Another wave. Another returned greeting.

There was something unexpectedly tender about it.

For just a second, it felt as though we weren’t strangers at all. We were simply sweet souls passing one another on a beautiful morning, acknowledging each other’s existence.

I see you.

Good morning.

May your journey be good.

No words were spoken, but somehow the gesture seemed to contain all of that.

I thought about how different it felt from an amusement park I had visited with my children a few weeks earlier.

There, people seemed impatient and irritated. Someone took a parking space I had been waiting for. People gave one another dirty looks. Standing in long lines in the heat, surrounded by crowds, everyone seemed a little more guarded, a little less generous.

And I wondered: How can the same human beings be so different depending on where we are?

On a hiking trail, we wave.

At an amusement park, we glare.

Of course, the setting matters.

On the trail, there is space. There are mountains and trees and sky. There is nowhere we urgently need to be. Our nervous systems have room to settle.

At the amusement park, there are crowds, lines, noise, money, children pulling at us, parking spaces to find, rides to get to, and the feeling that we need to squeeze as much fun as possible out of the day we have paid for.

We are still the same people.

But different environments call forth different parts of us.

And people do, too.

My friend is almost always the first person to say hello.

She waves first.

She smiles first.

She acknowledges the stranger before the stranger has decided whether to acknowledge her.

I watched her this morning and thought, I want to be more like that.

Because maybe kindness isn’t only something that happens when everyone around us is kind.

Maybe kindness is something someone starts.

One person waves.

The other person waves back.

One person holds the door.

The next person pauses to hold it for someone else.

One person smiles at the cashier instead of rushing through the transaction.

One person lets another car merge.

One person decides that the stranger standing across from them is not an obstacle, competitor, annoyance, or interruption.

Just another sweet soul making their way through the day.

We won’t always manage it.

Sometimes we are pressed and stressed and rushed and distracted. Sometimes we are carrying something no one else can see. Sometimes the parking space really does feel like the last straw.

But awareness gives us a tiny opening.

In that opening, we get to choose what we bring into the space.

We can enter a room and absorb its impatience.

Or we can bring something else.

A little spaciousness.

A little grace.

A wave.

And maybe someone receives it and passes it along.

I don’t know that we can make the whole world kind.

But I do think kindness has a way of creating its own atmosphere.

This morning on the trail, my friend created some.

A truck rolled slowly toward us.

She lifted her hand.

The driver lifted his.

And there we were, strangers beneath the open sky, blessing each other on our way.

Maybe changing the world sometimes looks exactly like that.

We can be the ones who wave first.