I didn’t really notice the man who stepped in behind me at the post office. Only dimly aware of a tall slim figure with long graying hair, I gave him no second thought.
I had just the moment before been contemplating the phrase, “Hold the world in the palm of your hand.” It had come to me a few days before while cooking dinner, and since then I occasionally mulled over what it means to me, trying it on, so to speak, to see how it fit. As I stood in line at the small contract post office tucked into the back corner of this gift shop/pharmacy, I imagined holding this ordinary scene in the palm of my open hand, observing it gently and giving it a lot of space. I noticed the clerk explaining the priority mail options to the man in front of me, the fluorescent lighting, and the packages and letters sorted into their appropriate bins.
The clerk, an angular middle-aged Asian woman with glasses, short wavy hair and a light, nickel-sized sunspot on her left cheek, ran the card of the man in front of me and waited for the receipt. A beat of time inserted itself into the scene, giving the man behind me his opportunity.
“Can I ... just ... ask a question?”
His speech is halting, the voice is thin, raspy and strained. He speaks with an unusual cadence, but it's not a foreign accent. His speech marks him as one of the Other; it's the sort you might hear from someone who’d spent time on the streets, maybe had some mental illness in his past. I didn’t want to look at him. “Alright,” the clerk says.
“Can you ... put together ... a package ... to send a container of some tennis balls?” he begins.
Now the credit card machine has spit out the receipt and the man in front of me is finishing up. The clerk starts to explain to him that the post office doesn’t do any packaging. “You need to bring it in ready to mail,” she explains.
This seems to make the man nervous, even moreso than his baseline nervousness, which seems pretty high. I glance over at him while he is sideways to me. He is wearing a dark green t-shirt over jeans that skim his wiry frame and I note clear, slightly watery eyes, a thin nose and square mouth. His shoulder-length, straight, graying light brown hair is parted in the middle. I see that his cheek is pulsating slightly. Maybe it’s a nervous tic or a breathing problem, I don’t know. His face is weathered, unshaven and weary, but open, sincere. None of the aging hippie posturing you sometimes see in graying long-haired men of a certain age.
Sensing his unease, she offers that he can buy a Priority Mail box there in the store and perhaps use that. “I don’t know ... it might not work,” he replies.
The man in front of me has gone on his way and I’m first in line. Now the clerk starts to seem a little nervous; she doesn't want to keep me waiting.
"... I need to get it ready to send to my Dad by Fathers Day.”
On hearing this my uneasiness at being near this man melts away, and I feel my heart opening to the simple sweetness of his seemingly fragile soul. I wonder what he has had to endure that makes the ordinary act of packaging and mailing a present seem as if it’s enough to break him.
I don't move towards the counter, but stay where I am, trying to hold this little scene as gently as possible, waiting to see how it will play out.
"Let me just take care of her, and then maybe I can help you," the clerk says. Her tone is very matter-of-fact, but the man, suddenly noticing that he's holding things up, looks ashamed and embarrassed. He backs up a step, lowering his head and stammering, "I'm sorry ..." He seems transparent, like a baby bird with pulsating, pink unfeathered skin.
It seems the thing to do is let the clerk attend to me. So I step forward and mail my package, a Fathers Day present to my own Dad, and on my way out I see her come from behind the counter to help the man pick out a box.
---
That happened a year ago and sometimes I still think about that man and his father. I hope he was able to get his present of tennis balls mailed off, and that his Dad knows the love his son still carries for him. When I think of it, I open my hand and hold them there again for a few moments.
This post is dedicated to my Dad and my husband, two of the best fathers around - I love you both very much. Happy Fathers Day.
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