And then you drive down the coast...

Spotted on the subway: the traveling gesture. A nicely dressed woman speaking animatedly to her friend, describing how you get to a location along the coast--you drive down by the water this way and that way--while her right hand described the trajectory out in front of her body. She ended her gestural phrase with a couple of rhetorical bounces of the hand and then a perfectly timed "ok" gesture with the right hand coming just before she said "it's very nice" as she recommended this oceanside getaway. I used the same traveling gesture in Poppea for "guida mia speme in porto"--Poppea's prayer that Amore guide her hopes into port. I loved seeing it in a totally contemporary setting.

What else could it be used for? It seems totally descriptive or imitative in its nature:

• looking for something right and left (rather than high and low)
• detective work, sleuthing (from the above)
• animal movement: a snake in the grass, a goldfish swimming in a pond
• an meandering state of mind, indecisive (a move away into metaphor)

And many more, I'm sure.