I ended up needing to find a post office today so looked online in the geographical area where I needed to also drop off some of my books. Turns out the best place to go had the worst online reviews ever---I mean, maybe the worst on the planet---but I decided to give it a go and a chance. When one is considering how bad the rush-hour traffic jam will be, one has to suck it up and go for most convenient.
The area must be, basically, the inner-city of Portland. I could barely see the front door as there was a large and intimidating chain-link fence surrounding most of the building. It's times like this when I am appreciative of growing up in Santa Ana---a combo of some of the richest and some of the poorest people in California at the time. Rather than feeling slightly nervous, I have this weird sense of peace that washes over me when in places that someone else may consider to be a total dive and wouldn't touch with a 10-ft pole. OK, so yes, it WAS a total dive. But the point is that my core power always seems to kick in and align and I find myself noticing lovely and simple things that somehow warm my heart. A kid behind me asked if I had a pen and after he was done, began playing with this cool gadget made up of a ball with a string on it. He alternated flipping the ball onto this wooden spiky thingy, and tossing the wooden thing onto the ball. No one was texting or talking on the phone while standing in line. At once everything felt simpler and so much sweeter.
I liked this place. People were nice. No pretentiousness because there didn't seem to be anything to be pretentious about. No, I wouldn't make it my regular post office, but I certainly wouldn't hesitate to use it again. And I didn't find my service to be any slower than any other post office, so not sure what the bad reviews were about. I was both appreciative that my world may not be as hard as some of these people, yet also envious that they have managed to keep it real.
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