The Wave

I learned to drive in a small town. Once I was on the road, I quickly learned that driving around town involved a lot of waving.

What was I supposed to do? Not wave to that friend of a friend of a friend’s uncle I met once at a birthday party when I was seven?

When I go back to Boothbay now, there aren’t many waves. In Brunswick there are none. But I found a place where that tradition exists.

I know one person on North Haven. But for three weeks, everyone I passed on the short drive between the inn and the jobsite waved at me. And I waved right back.

I didn’t realize until then how much I’d missed that.