We took a long road trip last June, and there was a major backup in Pennsylvania.
We’d driven through three big slowdowns (Connecticut!) and a rain torrent of biblical proportions, so we were beat.
Our very last wait-with-the-big-trucks event turned out to be the rubberneck side of the real event.
A crash on the other side created a dead stop for miles. The state police just shut the highway down at one point and detoured traffic. This caused another miles-long backup.
When I’m on the smooth-sailing side of the highway whooshing past a phalanx of furrowed headlights, I feel a mix of “oof so glad that’s not me” while I scan my recent traffic experience to see if my karmic balance means I deserve this turn to drive gridlock-free.
9 years living in LA tells me the answer is a perpetual yes.
But you get all kinds of mixy feelings when you go by a traffic event like this. You pray everyone in the crash was ok. You feel bad for the folks whose trips just got hours longer. And then you really feel anxious for the cars farther down the road doot-da-dooing at 75 mph straight toward an impending wall of stop.
The uncomfortable collection of feelings you get — feeling bad for folks while having no agency to do anything to help anybody — that’s a good check that your empathy’s on line.
And when you’re faced with gridlock (because no matter how many traffic karma hours you’ve logged on the 405 Freeway, you’ll still face gridlock), you can make another plan.
You can figure out how to wait well. I mean, there are podcasts now.
(Sometimes when the 5 Freeway was at a standstill, Melissa used to just go see a movie.)
Or you can take an alternate route.
A few weekends ago, Melissa and I went to Gloucester and Rockport, and Interstate 95 around Boston was a wicked clustah.
So, we took the scenic route through the towns outside the 95 perimeter.
It took an hour longer than waiting in traffic, and there were whoops-turn-arounds. But passing hydrangea bushes and town squares was a better plan than staring at concrete highway dividers.
So, just because you can’t do anything to help the folks on the other side doesn’t mean you need to turn off your mirror neurons or calculate some cosmic system of traffic experience fairness.
And when you’re the one who’s got to wait, you can find the best way for you to wait well or make a pit stop at the Louisa May Alcott House.
And look how beautiful Rockport, Massachusetts, is.
