Over the summer, the house next to ours in Brittany is used for holiday lets. With each ‘new’ neighbour, we usually exchange ‘hellos’ when they arrive and then, if they ask, we give advice on local matters such as the names of good restaurants or the day of the local market; usually, however, that is all. 

This blog is about conversations we had recently that were altogether richer. On several occasions, Rohan and I and three summertime neighbours chatted and in doing so discovered unexpected and fascinating coincidences that proved important to us all. Like coincidences generally, some of our discoveries were thrilling, some fascinating and some simply comforting.

Soon after their arrival, we realised that the three (two men, one woman, all middle-aged) were unusual. Not for them sun bathing on the beach all day – they preferred to relax in their garden talking or eating together, or sitting alone reading.
It was not until a week had gone by that we all ‘met’.  As a welcoming gesture, I took round a punnet of greengages from a tree in our orchard. There was no response when I knocked on their door and as I turned to return home, I noticed two books lying on the garden table. I took a peep and discovered that one was a book of poetry, the other a philosophical tract, or so I presumed from its title which was along the lines of: ‘A review of the philosophy of …..’ (I did not recognise the name!). 

Next day I returned with my punnet and this time the door was opened by the woman of the group who introduced herself as Solange. I offered her the greengages and invited her to pick more from our orchard if she wished. Then, I told her that when I came round the day before I had taken the liberty of looking at the books left out on the table and asked her if she was the philosopher. It was indeed her, and after some probing she said she had a doctorate in philosophy and at present worked in a lycée in Paris teaching philosophy to students hoping to go to one of the elite French universities – a Grandes Écoles. Immediately, I invited her to meet Rohan, who was also a graduate in philosophy with a PhD  and who I knew would be delighted to say hello and share stories. 

Their meeting was an immediate success as they established a rapport and discussed philosophy and details of the Sorbonne where Rohan was once a student. By happenstance, when she was there she had been to lectures given by a philosopher who was the subject of a book written by Solange herself. Rohan found these various coincidences fascinating, and by identifying with her, they gave me great pleasure too. 

Before Solange left, arrangements were made for us to meet her and her two friends, and accordingly they came once to tea in our garden and twice we went to them for an ‘apéro’.

Over that first cuppa, the conversation mainly involved Rohan and Pierre-Emmanuel who, we discovered was a psychoanalyst and a lucid one at that. Moreover, when he learned that Rohan’s mother was the celebrated Paris analyst Joyce McDougall his eyes lit up. She was for him an important influence whose works he had studied. He was well aware of her book ‘A plea for a measure of Abnormality’ and told how he was particularly taken by the way she had challenged the concept of a ‘fixed normal’. With that discovery, questions about Joyce rained down with conversation that made for compelling listening.

At our next meeting we talked mainly with Gregory whose story, which was absorbing, revealed someone who was both altruistic and courageous. After around twenty years as a dancer he had decided to change career and train to become a dance therapist and to help people with movement difficulties to be become more at ease with their bodies. Through research he had discovered that such therapy was very effective and he was determined to help. To become a therapist he would have to launch into three year’s of training at a college and since he had left school at around sixteen he would first have to pass the equivalent of three A-levels. For a man of 42 all this was an enormous challenge. By coincidence, it was at around this age that Rohan also changed careers as she went from teaching philosophy to fighting discrimination.

Our conversations this summer turned out to be full of wonderful coincidences and surprises which served to bring us all together and to create feelings of oneness. Such conversations would be expected when with old friends; that it can happen with those new – and much younger than us – is a lesson for the future. Hopefully, one day such a get-together will be repeated.

The illustration shows a photograph of our three summertime friends on the garden bench next door. From left to right are: Pierre-Emmanuel, Solange and Gregory.

For helping me write this blog I would like to thank Solange, Pierre-Emmanuel, Gregory, Marie, Martin, Rohan and Sarah.