Okay, I was in a hurry. I was going to a girls’ night out networking gathering and I had to stop at a Cash Station first.

I found myself slipping into one of those stretches of time when everything seems to slo-o-ow down, when the smallest of movements seem very big, when you can hear the dialog in your head in precise syllables. I noticed myself zoning out and couldn’t tell if a few seconds or a few minutes had passed.

I was forced to get still. I was stopped at a traffic light.

As I looked around the intersection, my eyes rested on an electronic sign for the neighborhood bank. It alternated between announcing the temperature and the time (which, according to my dashboard clock, was two minutes fast). I noticed what the gas prices at the Shell Station, on the opposite corner, were. (Not bad, I remember thinking. Or, were they for the price per gallon WITH a car wash?)

There was a bench near the bus stop just a few feet ahead of my car and a little independent computer repair shop across the street. (Funny, I thought, I don’t recall having seen it before.)

Then I looked at the car next to me. It was a sensible car, an environmentally friendly car; a late model Toyota Prius or something like that. A young father was driving and his two daughters (I assume) were sitting in the back seat. The younger one, who I guessed to be about five, was trying to get her older sister’s attention. She was failing miserably. The older girl, who was probably around ten, was doing what I was doing – scanning the intersection for anything interesting to focus on.  Of course, she probably was not upset that she was performing such a detailed scoping exercise because she was stopped at a traffic light. Looking at things just happened to be what she did.

And I somehow got the feeling that she could tell; that she could tell I was amused by her father’s mixed success concentrating and about how she was ignoring her younger sister. She knew that I wasn’t too pleased about getting stopped at the red light and how I was trying to make the best of things by critiquing what I observed in my surroundings, like how none of the nearby electronic clocks matched or how the well-accessorized cyclist, with his tripped out two-wheeler, was standing at the bus stop. (If he was so keen on cycling, why didn’t he simply ride his bike to his destination?)  She also knew I was looking at her. She knew, in looking past two pairs of car windows, that I was a little like her.

And when the light changed and her father revved up his Prius (if you could call it revving up), and we both pulled away, she looked directly at me and waved.

I melted.

Images of some of the great waves in history played in my mind like clips from old news reels.  I imagined Queen Elizabeth, with Kate and Lady Di in tow, showing me the backs of their hands from a regal balcony or carriage. I thought about Pope Paul (and John Paul, Benedict and Francis, with corresponding numerals), waving from Pope-mo-biles, to adoring crowds along streets in urban slums and grand plazas. I imagined Bill Clinton making his patented thumbs up gesture after a stump speech, a form of wave that signaled both intimacy and political calculation.

And here I was, with my car window down and my wandering mind corralled into stillness because of a traffic light and the gaze of a ten year-old…and the sight of her right palm rocking gently from side to side. In her small gesture, I knew she saw me. Saw ME.

And being seen is no small thing.