On our way down the mountain (and from here, everything in the world is "down the mountain"), we pass a house. On the front of the house is a mailbox. In the mailbox is a letter. A big juicy letter. It has been sitting in that mailbox for days and days now, untouched, sticking out into the sun and the wind and the rain. It is taunting me.

We don't ever get mail. Well, last month we got three pieces of mail out of the four that my brother sent me. (He is very kindly receiving all of our forwarded mail in the US and passing on to us the things that are truly necessary.) The one piece that didn't come was my Criminal Record from Arkansas, which I need for my application for Italian citizenship. It is out there somewhere now, floating around and showing that in my early life, I was either very good or very sly.

But that has been it. Just three things to show us that they could deliver the mail here, but they choose not to. The box of books that we mailed ourselves from Colorado last August has not arrived. My subscription to The New York Review of Books, which was arriving with great regularity all summer long to Gabe's apartment in Zurich, stopped completely when I changed the address to here. The thousands of cards and letters, with which I am sure my many friends are deluging me, have yet to materialize.

Now, you might think: "But who needs physical mail here in the actual 21st century?" That is because you do not have a Visa card that you depend on that is due to expire very soon and for which you will need the actual physical replacement. I do. Actual physical checks for our insurance rebates, mortgage escrow payoff, book royalties, and some of the pay for Jonathan's consulting work are things that it would be nice to be able to lay our hands on. I could go on and on. (I'm like that.)

We check the mailbox here at the house every day because we live in a state of perpetual optimism (punctured diurnally by despair.) And we also go into town and enquire in the Post Office whenever we feel we are able to handle the emotional strain. We take a number from the machine and wait until we are eventually called to the service counter -- from where we can clearly see boxes and letters sitting on the Posta Ferma shelf right behind the counter -- and ask if there is any Posta Ferma for us. Once they looked through the things on the shelf and said "no." Twice they typed our names into the computer and said "no." But mostly a rather forbidding man behind the counter tells us that Posta Ferma does not come there (without so much as asking our names or deigning to turn his head to even glance at the Posta Ferma shelf which -- again -- we can see completely clearly right behind him) and tells us to go check downstairs behind. 

Downstairs behind smells strongly of garbage and appears to be some sort of loading dock. The workers there look at us like we are crazy and tell us that Posta Ferma doesn't come down there and that we should enquire upstairs. Twice we have actually gone back upstairs to say to the people upstairs who sent us downstairs that the people downstairs told us to come upstairs. The forbidding man then says "no" and waves us away. 

We go away empty-handed and just hope that whoever has our box of books is enjoying them (some of them are Jonathan's high-level math books and therefore will of course provide hours of amusement and pleasure) and that whoever has my Arkansas Criminal record is using it for good and not evil.

In the meantime, the persimmon tree is loaded with luscious persimmons, most of which we cannot reach even with a ladder, even by climbing. We get what we can and call it a day. (The chestnuts, as if in compensation or maybe in a warning about being wary of abundance, continue to be oppressively available.)