This is a piece that’s been bouncing around my studio for a month or so, one that I call No Mail. It’s a smallish painting on paper, measuring about 8″ by 14″. I haven’t decided whether I will show this one or simply hold on to it. It’s a matter of whether I believe others will see anything in it rather than me wanting to keep it for myself. Maybe it’s that I see a very personal meaning in the piece that is reflected in the title and I can’t decide if it will translate to others.
For me, this painting reminds me of my childhood and the house I consider my childhood home, an old farmhouse that sat by itself with no neighbors in sight. Specifically, this painting reminds me of exact memories I have of trudging to the mailbox as an 8 or 9 year-old in the hot summer sun. There’s a certain dry dustiness from the driveway and the heat is just building in the late morning. It’s a lazy time for a child. Late July and many weeks to go before school resumes. The excitement of school ending has faded and the child finds himself spending his days trying to find ways to not be bored into submission.
The trip to the mail box is always a highlight of the day, filled with the possibility that there might be something in it for me. Soemthing that is addressed only to and for me, a validation that I exist in the outside world and am not stranded on this dry summer island. Usually, the tinge of excitement fades quickly as I open the old metal maibox and find nothing there for me. But occasionally there is something different, so much so that I recognize it without even seeing the name on the label or envelope.
It’s mine, for me, directed to me. Perhap’s it’s my Boy’s Life or the Summer Weekly Reader. I would spend the day then reading them from front to back , reading the stories and checking out the ads in Boy’s Life for new Schwinn bikes. Oh, those days were so good. The smell of the newly printed pages mingling with the heat and dust of the day to create a cocktail whose aroma I can still recall.
But most days, it was nothing. Just the normal family things– bills, advertisements and magazines. Or nothing at all. The short walk back to the house seemed duller and hotter on those days.
That’s what I see in this piece, even thought it doesn’t depict everything I’ve described in any detail. There’s a mood in it that recalls those feeling from an 8 or 9 year-old, one of anticipation and one of disappointment. Childhood days with no mail.
Redtree Times 
Many of us were rescued from boredom by that Weekly Reader.
I experience the poignancy and disappointment of “no mail” on a daily basis. Every evening when I stop at my mom’s place to cook supper and visit, she asks, “Was there any mail?”
Sometimes there’s a newsletter from her church in Iowa, or a note from her sister. Otherwise, it’s the occasional bill and advertising circulars.
When I have to tell her “No, no mail today”, you can see that 92-year-old’s world shrink a little more. Brings me to tears even to say it.
Thanks for sharing that poignant recollection. I still feel that same disappointment as I did as a child, and the same that your mother feels so profoundly, when there is no mail.
The painting reminded me of the old ‘homestead’ immediately. Somewhat in the vein of your mail memories, my memories are of the newspaper arriving every evening… couldn’t wait to catch the next installment of Dick Tracy or Mary Worth in the comic strips, and, of course, it meant that the day’s boredom was almost over. Mom and Dad would soon be home…
It’s interesting that you immediately thought of the old place with this piece. There’s something in the color of the sky (I’m not sure if it shows up on computer screen) that reminds me of old faded wallpaper. I think that was the key for me in linking it to the old house.