Travelers on I-75 through central Florida will likely be familiar with the proclamation, “We Bare All” on dozens of billboards, advertising the strip joint at Micanopy. While I admit to some curiosity and titillation, that’s not the reason those words were running around in my thoughts. Bare all. Bear all.

I have been re-reading Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, by Kathleen Norris. Her piece on detachment has this quote:

One sixth century monk, Dorotheus of Gaza, describes detachment as “being free from [wanting] certain things to happen,” and remaining so trusting of God that “what is happening will be the thing you want and you will be at peace with all.”

Norris goes on to say, “This sort of detachment is neither passive nor remote but paradoxically is fully engaged with the world. It is not resignation, but a vigilance that allows a person to recognize that whatever comes is a gift from God.” Richard Rohr calls it “death transformed.” A bit of ego dies, and something better arises in its place. We accept what we cannot change, and in the letting go of the futile wish that circumstances were different, we find the gift that was waiting. Something like detachment is a part of every wisdom tradition: Christian, Buddhist, etc.

I think the reason “bare all, bear all” was in my thoughts is that I am slowly coming to admit there is something I need to let go: a desire that has haunted me, poisoned me, for a long time. I cannot fulfill that desire; I need to accept that fact and embrace what I do have. I am still far from any detachment on this issue—depressed by the coming death and not at all trusting in a subsequent re-birth. While I would like to say I “bear” it with detachment, I am currently “bearing” with self-pity and resentment. 

In this frame of mind yesterday, I hit the mess that is Georgia highways. We were doing the Spring migration of Nancy’s snowbird parents, she driving the girls’ car and me driving the boys’.  I had seen a single warning, fifty miles or so in advance, that the right lane was to be closed during the weekend at mile xx on I-475, the bypass around Macon. There seem to be two kinds of drivers regarding lane closures: suckers (e.g., me) who move over immediately, and __ (another s-word comes to mind) who try to push to the head of the line by ignoring the warnings and then expect suckers to let them in at the last minute. Having seen the warning 50 miles back, and being of the sucker tribe, when I suddenly hit the traffic slowdown, I moved to the left lane.

But there is another reasonable response to a sudden slowdown, especially an unexpected one. (And a single warning 50 miles in advance is totally inadequate.) That response, which I once had ingrained but had not had to practice recently, is to take the nearest exit and evaluate alternatives. Nancy, some distance behind me, had just enough time to duck for what turned out be the last exit in a six-mile backup. Nancy breezed around the backup, in which I would be  trapped for nearly an hour and a half.

I judge the Georgia highway department in this instance to be either spectacularly incompetent or actively venal. They could have warned of large delays and urged finding an alternate route (there are at least two), but that might inconvenience the locals. Their neglect placed the entire burden on thousands and thousands of unsuspecting through-travelers. Adding insult to injury, this construction, scheduled for weekend hours, was totally unmanned when I passed at three on Saturday afternoon. The workers had quit for the day.

It got worse. Nancy, now an hour and a quarter ahead of me, hit more and more slowdowns, ones she could not drive around. Warning me of misery to come, she suggested I strike out across country in an effort to avoid the interstate. We have successfully enjoyed this kind of meandering before,  me driving and she navigating and exploring online. But this time, the strategy failed. Atlanta is just too big. I headed toward Athens to get away from the multiple snafus of the big city, then north to Gainesville, then through the Appalachian foothills into Tennessee. But every resident of Georgia chose this afternoon to take a leisurely drive, instead of staying home and watching whatever sport is currently in season. My father-in-law helped navigate and stayed in good humor, but the outcome was that we lost another hour and a quarter. We pulled into Oak Ridge two and a half hours after Nancy and her mother. What should have been an eleven and a half hour drive took me fifteen and a half hours.

Where does “bares all” comes into the picture? If you can think of a negative trait, I probably exhibited it yesterday afternoon. My very first reaction, when Nancy phoned to say she had gotten around the first backup, was anger and envy. As the day wore on, I added profanity, whining, despair. I tried, I really did, to take a more detached view of my predicament. I practiced my mindful breathing routines. I noted the beauty of the foothills and lakes. I thought of those not just inconvenienced for a few hours, but in seriously desperate straits: journalists and dissidents jailed and brutalized by despots, refugees from war and rampant civil disorder huddled at the borders of unwelcoming countries, my own among them. But truly, I was not the poster boy for detachment. Hours later, I am still wound up, still stewing.

And did you catch how I tried to distance myself from my baser self in the title? Not “I Bare All” but “Travel Bares All.” It wasn’t me; the devil made me do it.

As we kept in touch by phone during the long ordeal, Nancy kept saying, “You have to blog about this.” I suspect she had in mind my taking a humorous slant on the afternoon. In time, I suppose I will be able to do that. But for now, what stands out for me is embarrassment at what the afternoon revealed about me and how hard it is to let go what is old and not working and to embrace what is yet to be revealed.