March 2020 by Jeffrey S.
There's something very special about a post office in a faraway place. It's a link to someone else; an unseen string that connects you to them with nothing more than a few strokes of the pen, and a stamp. It also seems like a connection to a different time; a bygone era when we chose paper over pixels, cute cards over keyboards, and real connection over virtual reality. Perhaps today, as our society currently sits in isolation, a post office feels a little less distant in the past. Yes, a post office is a place where you send and pick up greetings from afar, and for a just a moment, that stamp connects your minds and hearts. Maybe you send a postcard from a trip. Maybe it's a letter from an overseas assignment. Or maybe it's a birthday card, painted with beautiful daffodils, or daisies, or dahlias; just to tell someone that you're thinking of them, you're glad they're doing well, and to wish them the very happiest of everythings. Yes, this post office has all of that charm. Located on "20 Jack and Jill Place," you couldn't ask for a more picturesque place. Perched on the incline headed out of Deer Harbor on Orcas Island, it houses just a few PO Boxes for this tiny community. There are three post offices on the island, actually, and it says something about my affinity for snail mail that I've been into two of them, and been by the third. I actually use the one right up the road from the ferry most often, as I sometimes send cards to friends on my way off the island. Especially today, I'm thinking about this post office and that connection it makes between two people.
