Stuck in Traffic

I wrote a post on Monday about building cairns, I'm sorry that you won't get to read it.  At least not in its original form, and not today.  I put a decent amount of time and effort into it and was pretty happy with it.  Not to mention that it was supposed to be the re-energization of my writing practice. Since I spent 12 hours in the car yesterday, most of which behind the wheel, I didn't have time to log into Lifedancer.  Imagine my surprise when I sat down to write today only to find my "Building Cairns" post had not published, and worse, the draft was missing.  Although I know that in the grand scheme of things, it was not an earth-shattering event, I was still in tears.   I hate losing anything--particularly things that can't be replaced.  Thoughts are ephemeral, especially when you have a terrible memory like I do.  Also, writing about something as it is unfolding or while it is fresh in your memory will undoubtably be different than a recollection of it later.  So for now, I'm putting it aside.

I'm trying to get over it and write something else.  It is difficult since I'm still fairly grumpy and disappointed.  I know it's all perspective and I could chose to be more easy going about it.  During our 12 hour car trip yesterday, which really only should have been about 9, there were a series of events that added time to the trip.  The first of which started with my oldest son who was in charge of reading the directions.  He decided to paraphrase some of the directions because he thought they were too long and I wouldn't be able to keep all of the information in my head.  Nice thought, but truthfully when information is included in directions it is because it it helpful, if not necessary, to know.  As it was in this case, so I missed a turn that set us in a direction that I did not want to go in.  I was really angry.  No yelling or cursing, just a lot of deep breaths.  The anger was because we were going the wrong way for a senseless reason.  Later in the day I get a phone call from my mother saying there was a fatal crash on this new route that I was now taking and several lanes were closed.  A moment later I was in back-to-back traffic and my book on tape ran out.  We moved about 5 miles in an hour and a half, but it was okay.  I didn't want to dishonor the people in the crash by being irritated for a minor inconvenience.  So I people-watched instead.

Usually in traffic you try to figure out the best strategy, get a feel for which lane is moving the fastest.  I was in the middle one and not really planning changing lanes.  I was watching the cars pass us and then us catch back up to them.  While going 2 miles an hour you have the opportunity to peek in the other cars, coming up with quick narratives of their lives.  The sweet old Asian couple are probably off to visit their grandchildren, the business man with several suits hanging in the back seat is heading home from a long commute from New York City, the woman with the funky manicure wrapped around the wheel of her Grand Marquis was making the most of her evening, singing disco songs.  Somewhat surprisingly, everyone seemed to be taking the traffic in stride.  That would not have been the case 20 years ago before cell phones.  Most of us would have been jumping in and out of our cars trying to crane our necks to see ahead.  The unknown would have made the wait unbearable.