I was attracted to Janice MacLeod’s memoir, Paris Letters, mostly because of its cover. I don’t often indulge myself – book buying via aesthetics – although I do admit that I am a sucker for books with creepy houses on the front. Still, Paris Letters is a pretty book and when I read the blurb on the back I thought it sounded familiar. I used to keep track of all the books I want to read in a little notebook which I carted around with me. Then I lost the book and now I am flying solo. It’s kind of freeing, I have to admit, but I still wonder about all those titles I have logged over the past decade and think about the reading experiences I might have had. Oh well.
Paris Letters tells the story of MacLeod’s journey from exhausted copywriter to “someone who could make a great living creating something lovely.” Originally from Ontario, MacLeod lives in Los Angeles when the book opens where she admits to being “thirty-four, single, lonely, feeling unfulfilled by my job and on the brink of burnout.”
MacLeod knows she has to make a change and so, inspired by Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, she starts to keep a journal. She also created a blog – a more visible way to make herself accountable. It doesn’t take MacLeod very long to figure out that what she really wants to do is quit her job, which is creatively unfulfilling.
I wrote true junk mail. I mucked up websites with ads, stuffed bills with flyers, and inundated the public with information on products they probably didn’t care about and likely never asked for. That was me. Mailing out perfect forest after perfect forest of perfectly useless messages from Fortune 500 companies. I was directly involved with the noise of daily life.
MacLeod decides that she is going to save enough money to take a year off to travel, an activity that has always given her pleasure in the past. So, with great determination, she pares down her life. She sells unused items, she gives up eating lunch out with her colleagues, she gives up cable and sells her TV. (MacLeod shares 100 things she did to save money at the back of the book.)
MacLeod’s plan was to start in Paris and end in Rome, but what she doesn’t factor into her plans is Krzysztof (Christophe), the cute butcher who “bore a striking resemblance to Daniel Craig.” Turns out, Krzysztof is one of the good ones and their relationship is the reason why Paris Letters isn’t Roman Letters.
Paris Letters isn’t so much of a story as it is a lovely meditation on what it is to live a simpler life. It’s a bit of a fairy tale, too. I mean, MacLeod is in Paris after all. She strolls around the city, visiting famous landmarks, writing in and about her favourite cafes and gardens and when her money starts to dwindle, she thinks about what she can do to supplement her income. That’s where the idea of the Paris letters comes from.
I would create a painted letter, copy it, personalize each copy, and mail them off to people who love fun mail….I listed the product on Etsy as a subscription service. For twelve months, people would receive a painted letter from me.
This is when I realized I had heard of MacLeod and her Paris letters, perhaps in a magazine like Canadian Living or Chatelaine. As a person who loves snail mail, I was intrigued by MacLeod’s concept. It’s cool, right?
Paris Letters is a love letter. To Paris. To Krzysztof. To living the life you want. You could argue that since MacLeod was unencumbered because she had no real ties to L.A. – no children or spouse or property – leaving it all behind was easy. I still think it was an act of bravery. She didn’t know anyone; she didn’t really speak the language well; she was on her own. There are some days when I imagine shaking my own life up in exactly the same way.
Paris Letters is a quick read and, if nothing else, it will make you want to visit Paris. But for me, it made me consider the possibility of doing something other than.
The Ludic Reader 