Paris Letters (13 page)

In my wanderings, I came across this fountain in Jardin du Luxembourg. When I first came upon this couple, I came undone. I hadn’t yet started dating Christophe. Despite my best efforts to embrace being alone, what I really wanted was to be the girl on the rock in the arms of an adoring man. A quiet voice from deep within eeked out, “Yes, please.”

A few days later, Christophe kissed me and we began our little Paris love affair. Sometimes we sit next to this fountain together and listen to the trickle of water that makes all the noise of the city fade away. Afterward, if we don’t know what to say or how to say it, we meander over to the Seine and walk over one of the bridges hand-in-hand so I can say later, “Wasn’t that marvelous?!”

Janice

17

The Paris Letter Project

A few days later, after I had stopped by the butcher shop and puckered up for a petit bisou with Christophe, I zigzagged my way to Les Deux Magots on boulevard Saint-Germain. This is the famous café where Simone de Beauvoir sipped legal addictive stimulants while concocting big ideas that would later win her worldwide acclaim. This café serves American-style coffee and fresh-baked croissants, and boasts a fantastic view of the street. A perfect place to be alone among others. De Beauvoir knew what she was doing.

I sat inside, away from the hustle-bustle of the terrasse. Come summer, the cafés of Paris fold back their outer walls so that wherever you sit, inside or out, you can soak in the warm summer breeze. I pulled out my journal. By now, I had been writing in my journal for a year and a half, and it became my home base. The one constant foreground when all my backgrounds shifted. The place where I could figure out the next steps.

Now the next step wouldn’t be figuring out which city to visit, but what I could do with myself from one place. The time had come when I had to revisit my reserve. The bank account had taken a plunge with all my travels, and so did a few of my stocks. It was time to figure out how to replenish the buffer so it would always be ahead of me and I would never be forced back into a draining job of time sheets and vacation accrual.

But what could I do to make cash?

I would consult my journal, just as I had done from the beginning. I would write my way to the answer, at times with help from Mr. Miyagi. I opened my journal, and my letter to Áine slipped out. As I looked it over, I thought that I’d rather create another painted letter than sit writing through ideas to make money to boost my account.

And of course, that was the answer.

It was always the letter. Painted letters from Paris to delight Áine, who was busy carving out her career, this time in Toronto. Painted letters to my friends in Rome to thank them for a lovely holiday and supporting my little artistic dreams from that night sitting outside the Colosseum. Painted letters for anyone who donated on my blog. A grateful thank-you from the road for their support. Would other people want painted letters from Paris too?

But these letters would take time. I couldn’t create a new letter for every person who wanted one. I’d end up back where I started: too much work, too little time.

Akemi’s voice came into my head. You’re a copywriter. That’s who you are.

Copy. Writer. Copy writing.

Copy the letter. Personalize each copy.

Of course. When I wrote junk mail letters, I would start them all with “Dear FName.” The FName stood for First Name and was the code that told the computer to replace each FName with the first name of the recipient of the letter. I would do the same with my painted letters, but instead of using a computer, I would write in the name with a pen. It wouldn’t be an original letter for each person, but if I did it this way, the whole process would be more time-effective for me and more affordable for a subscriber. I thought back to my original equation of $100 a day. Would I rather make $100 from creating one painted letter for one person? Or would I rather get $5 from twenty people for a copied letter? What would I pay for a painted letter? I would pay $5 for a copy rather than $100 for the original, especially if I were engaged in some escape artistry and would need those other $95 to meet my financial goals.

So that’s what I would do. I would create a painted letter, copy it, personalize each copy, and mail them off to people who love fun mail.

I consult the Percy Kelly in my mind.

“Go for it. What could happen? I’ll help when you get stuck.”

I tossed a few coins on the table and nearly ran home.

My first official painted letter was copied, personalized, and mailed to a dozen friends with notes saying I would send them a letter like this each month for a year. I committed to a year of letters so I wouldn’t chicken out. I had to be accountable to someone, just as I was with my blog in 2010 when I had vowed to write in my journal every day for a year. With people reading, I was more likely to stick to the plan.

I listed the product on Etsy as a subscription service. For twelve months, people would receive a painted letter from me. I advertised my new service on the usual social media streams and waited for orders.

A few days later, I woke to Christophe delivering a coffee to bed. We sat in bed and sipped. I explained the concept to him. He nodded. “It’s for joy.” He got it.

“Oui. Mail for joy.”

Halfway through the cup, he started to get ready for his workday, which couldn’t happen soon enough because I was already reaching for my phone to check to see if I had any orders.

Which I did!!!! Blessings ahoy!

I had about a dozen orders. They were all from friends, but still, actual orders.

When he left for work, he said, “Go back to sleep. It’s early.” I nodded. But when the front door closed, I leapt out of bed, slipped into my yoga pants, and began fulfilling orders. Envelopes! Printouts! Ink! Stamps! Heaven!

Later, I walked up the street with these little beauties and stopped at the butcher shop for another smooch with Christophe, grateful that it was a pleasure for him to give me the large amount of kisses I required. He saw my handful of envelopes and smiled. I skipped/ran to the post office and sent these little envelopes of bliss on their merry way.

One might think, Isn’t this STILL a lot like Direct Mail, the career I left all dramatic-like? I admit, I was actually creating mail that goes directly to a person, which may seem a lot like direct mail. But with this Paris Letter service, I was sending mail to people who actually wanted it. People who paid for it. People who welcomed it.

I imagined they would come home from a long day at work, grab the mail, see the usual junk mail, and sigh. “Not this crap again.” But inside that little pile of envelopes was a sweet little letter from Paris. “Ah, it’s here.” Eyes narrowing, grins forming.

Orders trickled in at a constant rate. Enough to keep me busy and with enough cash so I didn’t have to tap into the reserve too often. People I didn’t even know started subscribing. When I would tell Christophe about new orders, he would say, “You know these people?” and I would exclaim joyfully, “NO! They are all strangers. Isn’t that wonderful!”

As I addressed the envelopes over the next few months, I wondered about the receivers. How was Janet from Peculiar, Missouri, doing? And Ronda who lived on Pughs Store Road. I’d love to ask her if there still is, or ever was, an actual store named after a Pughs. If so, was Pughs the store owner or an important historical figure of the town? How was Susan in Lucknow doing these days? How about Liz on the Lake Road who lived in Driftwood Point. Or Leila in Las Vegas who sold a few things on eBay to pay for her letters. Then there was Miss Love who lives on Flowery Branch Road. I bet she loved writing her address. When I was a kid, I grew up at RR#1, Clear Creek, Ontario, Canada. The RR stands for rural route and wasn’t nearly as interesting as the address for Mrs. Golden, who lived on Sugar Creek Trail. Such lovely addresses from places I’ve never been. I felt like I was traveling to these distant lands without leaving my base in Paris.

I thought of the names of my subscribers, too, as I would address their letters. How their parents usually did a pretty good job naming them. I would admire how the double Ls in Sally’s first name matched the double Ls in her last name. How Joshua and Jones was a nice pair. There were a lot of Jennifers, Jennys, Jens, and Jenns. And Lindas, Lynnes, and Lynns. The Catherines, Katherines, Kathleens, Cathys, Kathys, and Kates. They all had to be kept straight. And then there were the zip codes and the street names. Dreamy street names introduced themselves with every order: Forest Lake Drive, Pear Tree Lane, Garland Street, Chestnut Street, Mistletoe Way, Mossy Creek Court, Letterman Way, and my favorite, Yellow Brick Drive.

It was all juicy fun until the lame subscribers arrived, who, on occasion, were expecting the original painting rather than a personalized copy of the original painting. As if I would spend days painting a scene of Paris just to sell them for less than the cost of a pit stop at Starbucks. They were just like old clients who wanted more, more, more for less. I tried to treat these people like I did when faced with dog poop on the sidewalks in Paris. A glance out of the periphery of my vision, a smooth sidestep, and an erasing of the moment from my mind.

Dear Áine,

It’s raining in Paris today. Not all day, just when I gear up to go. The clouds seem to know when I put on my coat, and they take it as a cue to downpour. So while I wait for the latest downpour to subside, I’m writing this letter to you and sipping coffee.

My haste to get outside is based on an exciting call I received after lunch. The book I ordered has arrived at the local English bookstore. There is something poetic about a good old-fashioned bookstore. I used to have Amazon deliver books to my door. I’ve always had a love for mail. And these days, I’ll be the first to brag about the convenience and pleasure of e-books. The instant access to English books in a French-speaking land is a magical delight. But there is magic in traditional bookstores too. It’s a magic you can feel in the air. The smell of aging paper, of ink, and of people. And in Paris, some of those people were Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

The rain has subsided for now. The clouds are likely waiting for me to lace up my shoes. Walking in the rain in Paris isn’t so bad. The sound of the rain hitting my umbrella is pleasant, and the light from the lampposts glistens on the sidewalk.

Janice

18

Our First Fight

Christophe continued to shower me with affection: bringing me coffee, holding my hand, taking the occasional mousetraps out to finish the job. (Now I know why Ratatouille was set in Paris.) Everything was perfect.

Until I changed things.

When I first moved in and saw that Christophe had repainted and made the house pretty, I was delighted with all of it. However, the carpet in the bedroom horrified me. We’re talking 1985 carpet that they install in schools. So I went ahead and laid a floor on top of the carpet. By. My. Self.

Why?

Because Christophe thought the floor was just fine as it was. When I asked him about changing the floor, he explained, quite reasonably, that he didn’t own the place and a new floor crossed the line of home improvements that he could do. I had already duct-taped over holes along the floorboards and wondered if anyone would cross those lines.

I had never actually installed a floor before, but my dad is a flooring guy, and when I was a kid, I picked up a lot watching him. Still, I was a little scared to start. Not only because I had just moved in with a guy and he said no. But the first time doing anything new tends to bring up plenty of fears of not being talented enough, smart enough, or even just physically strong enough. To combat said fears, I did two things:

I told a few friends I was doing it. They did a wonderful job in giving me the permission I wanted to give myself to lay that floor.

Remembering my twenty-minute trick from when I cleared out my apartment back in California, I set my alarm. I told myself I only had to do it for twenty minutes and then I could rest and move on to something else. With the support of friends behind me and twenty minutes ahead of me, I began. After the first twenty minutes, I had a few planks down. They were looking pretty good, so I put another twenty minutes on the clock and another few planks down. Four hours later (including another trip to the hardware store because I hadn’t measured correctly), I was done and the bedroom was worthy of being featured in a design magazine. The job was akin to putting together a big jigsaw puzzle or massive sticker collection. I had a pile of dull blades from my cutting knife, bruises up and down my arms, and a smile of satisfaction on my face.

Three cheers for me!

I also had half a pack of the planks left over, so I covered the old shelf in the bathroom, and my original smile of satisfaction turned into beams of pride.

Then Christophe came home.

There are those moments at the beginning of a relationship when you test each other. I suppose this entire exercise was a test to see what he was like when triggered. He came in the house, looked at the floor, looked at me. I beamed. “I did it myself!” He said nothing. Instead, he suggested we go to the grocery store to get food for dinner. And in that little jaunt up the street, he was silent, a different silence than the usual language barrier. He was probably wondering, Is this how she is? And I was wondering the same about him. Is he a silent-treatment guy?

Somewhere between the apples and oranges, he turned to me. “Why did you change the floor after I said no?”

“Because you said no, and I wanted to do it anyway. It makes me happy, and I like to be happy.”

Talking to someone in another language makes you simply cut to the chase. You just don’t know enough words to pussyfoot around a situation.

“It makes you happy?”

“Yes.” Hands on hips. “Even if it makes you mad.”

He laughed. I laughed. He likely wondered what he was getting into by dating me. Later he admitted that, though he retained his opinion that it looked fine before, he noticed that my added joviality around the house made me sexier.

“Great,” I said. “Can we get shower doors now?”