Your Friends and Neighbors.

It’s spring in France and the air is perfumed with the rows of wisteria that hang like grapes over doorways. My cat can be seen frolicking in the daisy patches like a kitten. And my playlist has gotten a little sunnier with 60s FM radio hits ranging from Motown to flower power pop to garage rock.

After months of hibernating — or cocooning, as they say here — everyone is out and about again. A new season in a small town, you tend to notice it all: the brighter clothing, the new sunglasses, the haircuts. I’m bumping into faces I haven’t seen in months, slipping into conversations both simple and strangely revealing. With the change in season comes a change in mood, reminding me of the Velvet Underground lyric: “Situations arise because of the weather…”

Because that’s exactly it.

And now that we’re no longer holed up inside, all the personalities have come out to play.

Last week, on the first genuinely warm day of the year, I decided to paint the trim around my front door. To contrast the Beverly Hills Hotel green I’d painted last summer, I went for a soft vanilla hue to give it the vintage touch of an old hatbox. Feeling motivated and equipped with my tiny paint can, I queued up a golden oldies playlist, grabbed my coffee and settled in for what I imagined would be a perfectly peaceful morning of quiet productivity.

As I began applying the protective tape around the corners of the trim, Jean-Luc, the neighborhood’s black cat, trotted over. He began what looked like a Secret Service sweep, sniffing and inspecting every corner of my setup before finally approving the project by sitting guard right behind me. Every so often he’d turn and meow something, where I would, yes, respond, much to the eye-roll disdain of the bitchy teenager who lives across the street and is always lurking in her window. But I speak to Jean-Luc in English and he meows in French, creating what I consider a truly international friendship for the ages. Eventually a leaf blowing down the street proved far more interesting, and off he raced, leaving me alone with my FM radio and paintbrush.

That was when I began to hear voices drifting from the open window of Géraldine, the elderly widow next door. Under the jangly sitar-pop melody of Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman,” a strange repetition of words floated out.

Whatever, I thought, focusing on the tape that kept sticking to itself. As I scraped my nail across the roll trying to find the seam, the words from her window kept drifting over. Her house, typically quiet, suddenly felt out of the ordinary. But being someone who generally prefers knowing less about people, I felt conflicted. Do I investigate, or do I block it out?

After a few more rounds, though, curiosity won out, and stealthily, I reached for my phone to lower Donovan.

However, lowering him didn’t offer much more of a logical explanation. In fact, it made it worse.

« Le sang du Jésus Christ ! » I thought I heard the voice that was not Géraldine say.

But clearly, I heard it wrong, until I heard it again. « Le sang du Jésus Christ ! » the low voice practically hissed.

Then I heard it again. And again. And yet, again.

What in the…

Now involving myself, I squinted, looking up at the open window desperate for a clue. But the voice continued, repeating the phrase while seeming to hit something soft and dense, like a mattress.

Once I ruled out the obvious, like the TV, my Roman Catholic imagination immediately supplied two possible explanations. One: perhaps my neighbor Géraldine had passed away and the family was blessing her soul with the blood of Jesus Christ. Or — and this was a big or — two: she was still alive but possessed, and they were conducting an exorcism next door. Maybe I watch too many paranormal films or have been to too many Italian funerals, but both theories struck me as entirely logical.

“But no,” I actually said out loud, holding up the tape roll. “We’re friends with her son Guillaume, so we would have known if she had passed.” One side of my brain reasoned before the other reminded me that she had been rushed to the emergency room a few weeks before.

I was torn. Do I ring the doorbell? If so, then what? Or do I continue painting? I really didn’t want to be that nosy neighbor, but I was starting to get concerned.

With that, I shuffled back into the house, knowing a second set of ears was imperative.

“Pssst,” I said to Aurélien, sitting at his desk.

When he saw the concerned, almost frantic expression on my face, he braced himself for what he assumed would be another three-act story about Jean-Luc, since cat news and their subsequent dramas are taken quite seriously around our house.

But he didn’t get a cat story. Not this time. Instead he got: “I think there is an exorcism being performed next door.”

« Un exorcisme ? » he overenunciated, making sure he had heard the word correctly.

« Oui…! » I exclaimed through gritted teeth as I waved him to the front door. « Viens, viens. »

Since Aurélien is my voice of reason, I naturally expected a logical explanation as he followed me outside. Thankfully the voice continued as proof I wasn’t imagining things. His face confirmed he too heard the voice intoning as he looked up at the open window. There, he listened, assessed, and nodded thoughtfully at the right moments, as I looked at him expectantly, impatiently.

“So?” I said.

“It appears the person in the room,” he said, his voice suddenly grave, “is saying the blood of Jesus Christ.” He looked at me. “On repeat.”

“And it’s not the TV?”

He nodded his head. « Je crois pas. »

I threw my hands up. “Well, we need to call Guillaume.” My Italian-girl-from-New York accent now in full force. “This has gone on too long now.”

Guillaume picked up on the second ring. Aurélien didn’t share my death and exorcism theories (so weird) but simply alerted him to irrégularités taking place at his mom’s house. He arrived within minutes (gotta love small villages), walking briskly up our street with a face that said qu’est-ce que c’est ce truc ? He looked concerned but stayed calm as he walked into his mom’s house while we remained on standby, ready to help in any way we could.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that would entail…

In our house, the seconds stretched into long minutes as we waited for an update. I figured the situation would require some sort of spiritual support and began mentally inventorying our resources, imagining there would be some bible handling. I thought about Georges’ baptism Bible, which I believed was stashed in his blue dresser. I then powered up the espresso machine, knowing this would also come in handy. Sabbath candles? My grandmother’s Virgin Mary mini-statue I keep in the kitchen? Soon after, Guillaume walked into our house wearing an amused look on his face.

« Ça va ? » Aurélien and I asked in unison.

« Ça va, » he replied with a chuckle.

« Ça va. » Aurélien accepted as a complete explanation. « Café ? »

The Frenchmen were ready to leave it at that before the Italian Girl from New York once again swooped in.

“No ça va,” I said in protest of their tidy clean-up. “What the hell happened?” I said in English, my hands flying out like the Marisa Tomei character I’m always compared to.

“What you heard,” Guillaume explained breezily, “was just the cleaning lady venting about her boss while changing the sheets in the guest room.”

“With the blood of Jesus Christ?” my inner Marisa continued.

He shrugged. “She was just blowing off some steam.”

I looked to the side, clearly still having more questions (I always have more questions), but since no one had died and there wasn’t an exorcism happening next door, it had to be good enough. So, I shrugged. He shrugged. We all shrugged. We had our coffee and Guillaume left.

I returned to my spot in front of the house to start applying the primer. I turned the volume back up on my playlist just in time for the organ swirls of “Time of the Season” by The Zombies.

This was when I heard shouting.

Angry. Passionate. Shouting.

Now what?

« Pourquoi t’as fait ça ?! Pourquoi t’as fait ça ?! »

I slowly craned my neck, peeking over my shoulder just enough to catch sight of the young couple who had recently moved in down the street. They appeared to be locked in some sort of standoff on the street. The boyfriend sat in his wheelchair while the girlfriend hovered over him, demanding answers. Every time he tried to answer, though, she would ask him again: « Pourquoi t’as fait ça ?! »

The blood of Jesus Christ, I did feel I had to inquire within, but this? This was officially none of my business. So I turned back to my door, dipping my brush into the white primer. Not wanting them to feel spied on, however, I raised the volume a notch to offer a polite layer of sonic privacy.

Although I could still hear them, the easy groove of the Zombies song created a small buffer, letting each of us remain safely inside our own worlds — me painting, them fighting. The song was nearing its end, though, so I turned up the volume during the fade-out. I may have overcompensated, because the next song came barreling in like a street carnival. It would have been passable as background noise, had it not been “Reach Out of the Darkness” by Friend and Lover.

If you’re not familiar with the song, trust me when I say it is probably the last thing you’d want blaring at top volume while trying to own an argument. Screaming over the Summer of Love lyrics, “I think it’s so groovy now, that people are starting to come together!” added a thick layer of irony that felt part-Tarantino, part-Lynchian, adding a cinematic touch to the absurdity by way of 1960s optimism.

I kept painting.

There was a brief, almost comedic break in their argument as the 1960s anthem cannibalized the moment with its unbridled cheer. I didn’t dare lower the volume as doing so would have announced my presence, and I was still operating under the illusion that I was invisible. So I kept painting, brush moving steadily, while they continued shouting over the pop music until they finally retreated inside.

Géraldine’s cleaning lady then left, lugging her bucket of cleaning agents, and wished me a cheerful bonjour, completely oblivious to all the excitement that morning.

I returned the greeting and kept painting.

This was when I heard the engine rev from my other next-door neighbor, Yves-Michel. Because our cobblestone driveways are attached, I began gathering my supplies to move them out of the way. This, however, wasn’t the real concern.

Yves-Michel is 95 years old and on medical assistance where I personally know his morning and afternoon nurse. I know for a fact he hasn’t driven in over five years because we pick up groceries for him when his son is unable to. So I watched with a mix of confusion and fear as he slowly pulled his car a few feet out of the garage, unsure what the next move would be.

This was when his wife, Madeleine, whom I rarely see, came bursting out of the house screaming, “Have you lost your mind? You can’t drive!” With her hands in the air, she looked manic. Her eyes briefly met mine before she turned back to her husband, urgently coaxing him back inside.

« J’en ai marre d’être enfermé à la maison ! » he shouted, pointing a finger toward the sky. “Il fait beau! J’ai envie de sortir ! »

It had taken this beautiful spring day for him to finally realize he had been closed in for years, and now he was attempting what looked like a full prison break. His soft-spoken wife, however, was not having any of it. She used every ounce of energy in her small body to scream, “Get back in the house!”

The car reversed back into the garage. The engine went silent. And Yves-Michel, who is usually so chatty and loves telling us how ready he is to die already, retreated inside. Through their open window I could hear them recounting the entire “event.”

After the morning’s exorcism speculation, the made-for-reality-TV showdown, and now the attempted escape, I figured the rest of the day would feel comparatively uneventful. So when the sister of the girl who runs the manicure business out of her garage stopped by for what looked like a tense visit before huffing off, it barely registered. (My guess was money.) My other neighbor Pascal double-parked briefly to unload cartons of honey he harvests and sold me two jars right on the street, like a drug dealer. Then another neighbor — the one who walks this insanely adorable honey-colored Shiba Inu that looks like a stuffed animal fox — stopped in front of my house. He didn’t ask me if I knew of a private detective like he did one time. Nor did he tell me that Russian women only want sperm and money like he did another time. Or declare that Halloween was satanic like he does every year, implying I “brought it” to the small town with my American imperialism. Instead, he simply informed me that I got some white paint on the green part of the door. But otherwise it was bien.

« Merci, » I sang out and kept painting.

I finished the job, doing my best to keep the edges clean and perfect, although my Virgo eye sees everything. I closed the door, though, wondering how so many things could happen in only a few hours on such a quiet street? — the mini-dramas, the prison breaks, the damning of Christ, the jars of honey, the cats….

Sometimes I think it’s my writer’s mind that makes me too observant, almost to a fault. Or maybe spring has simply infected the whole neighborhood and the pollen is having this psychedelic effect on everyone. Or perhaps it’s just another perfectly ordinary day in our small French village. Who knows? I still can’t figure this place out.

And perhaps I never will.

Happy spring wherever you are in the world and bon week-end!