Paris Letters Read Online Free PDF Page B

you got whiplash from extended computer use.”
    “Is that a thing?”
    She nodded. “Happens all the time.” She wrote out a prescription for physical therapy. I asked her for extra days off from work. She laughed. “No, but here are some muscle relaxers that will make work feel like a circus.”
    Kate was my new physical therapist. She worked through the knots in my back, legs, and feet. It all helped, but when she started squeezing and scrunching the muscles around my shoulder sockets, the knots began to release their stronghold. Each week I returned for my rubdown, ready to wince through my wringing. Slowly the golf balls in my back disappeared, and I was able to move my neck again and return to my journal each day to cross off items on my list of unfinished business.
    All this time with Kate made me think that I should take care of all medical appointments. When was the last time I got my eyes checked and ears cleaned? Isn’t it time for my annual girly parts test?
    With muscle relaxers in my bloodstream, Kate on speed dial, and a clean bill of health from a handful of medical professionals, I was feeling good about life. And my day job still didn’t bother me as much because I refocused my energy on my dwindling list of unfinished business.
    By night, I moved on from my closets to delve into my cupboards. I tossed dried-up nail polishes and hairbrushes. I only used one hairbrush. Why did I have six? I used up the rest of my teeth whitening gel. I gave up on and tossed the recipes I’d clipped for dishes I never made. I tossed the free CD of weird music I never listen to from that yoga class I stopped going to. The old yoga mat, the deflated yoga ball, the broken yoga straps, the expired yoga membership…tossed. Half-filled journals of half-baked ideas, the stack of phone books from the last five years, broken flowerpots that I kept with thoughts of making something crafty from them, the broken frames I meant to fix…tossed. Makeup samples, swag from film industry party gift bags, sunglasses with scratches, a home phone even though I didn’t have a land line anymore, chargers for cell phones I didn’t have anymore, computer boxes for computers I didn’t have either, instruction manuals for electronics that I didn’t even remember having, the wrong-sized vacuum bags I never returned, checkbooks for accounts I no longer had…tossed. And loyalty cards that promised savings on everything I bought. Tossed. I’d save more by not buying.
    And through all this, I collected a little stack of half-finished letters to my friend Áine. She and I had been writing letters back and forth for years. We haven’t lived in the same city since we met in school. When I lived in Toronto, she lived in Japan. When she lived in Toronto, I lived in Los Angeles. When I lived in Toronto again, she lived in Ireland. And now that I was living in Los Angeles again, she was back in Toronto. She is an Irish redhead in temperament and sometimes in looks, yet she’s as sweet as sugar. On our first vacation together, when I was meeting her in Japan, we realized that we were such compatible travel companions that we decided to see as much of the world as we could together. She’s a master at languages, and I’m good with the map. I’ll get us to a certain restaurant, and she’ll order for us. And if some fool is trying to pull one over on us, she will whip out crazy language skills and tell him what he can do with himself and the horse he rode in on. She’s amazing. We usually travel to places where the mountains meet the sea.
    I sat next to my garbage bag and reread the unfinished letters to her. They were all on French-themed stationery: Eiffel Tower, cafés, poodles, wine bottles, winding streets, etc. And all my thank-you cards were emblazed with Merci. Why hadn’t I realized this before? Perhaps Paris would be a nice place to visit once I made the dough to quit my job.
    I mailed off the stack of letters with a note explaining that