My fear for both of us is that we never recover from the way we’ve misunderstood each other. I’ve stomped on you and you’ve shrunk me down. I worry that the damage will be irreversible if nobody speaks now on the situation. Then neither of us will be able to come over to chat. And when your AC breaks down you won’t hang out in my kitchen anymore, and when I lock myself out I won’t come to you, because I will have given my spare key to someone else down the street. If we stop talking about the nice weather the air between us will go so cold… It’ll be a disaster.

What happened was that last Monday, I woke up to a dozen eggs on my doorstep. There was a note attached to the carton, addressing my name and signing yours, but with no instructions, no explanation. I spent the rest of that day sprawled out in the square of hot sun on my carpet in the living room, wondering what it all meant.

Maybe you wanted me to dye the eggs or throw them at your cranky sister’s car. Maybe they were they a gift. Or a plea or a mistake. Maybe you wanted me to bake you a cake maybe you were hungry and had no recipes. I thought I was a terrible friend for not knowing what you wanted from me. Maybe it wasn’t anything. Maybe you just bought extra. Maybe what you wanted was just to give me a gift.

From Tuesday to Thursday, all I could manage to do was tiptoe out onto the front porch in the mornings and lift the carton enough to inspect if the eggs were cracked or broken or missing. I let the days go by like this, clinging to my useless routine, afraid to ask you what to do, afraid to offend, afraid.

Since you’re across the street from me, I know you noticed how I treated your eggs. It probably seemed so ungrateful of me, to just leave them sitting out there like that, and ignore what you gave me because it was fragile and unexplained and I didn’t know how to receive it.

On Friday, I woke up frustrated and guilty. I felt like I could do nothing right by you and this made me so angry that I decided to even things out. I left three glass polar bears on your doorstep with a note from me. I didn’t knock. I didn’t wrap them. I wanted them to be mysterious. I wanted to confuse you. I was hoping that you too would feel the burden of having a friend give you something precious with no instructions.

I spent the hours from Friday to Sunday perched at my window and staring out onto your porch. I imagined my polar bears taking on the sun like soldiers and agonized over what you would decide to do with them. Anyone – the mailman, the birds – could shatter them so easily. Would you let that happen?

On the following Monday, my polar bears were still in one piece but they looked lonely. When I closed my eyes I saw them melting in the sunshine, losing their battle. I kept hoping you’d come to their rescue and take them inside with you and maybe even display them next to that vase you like so much. But if your inaction was in retaliation for the eggs, it wasn’t unfair.

I feel as though the pavement separating our homes has opened up and become a wide, rushing river. I feel like I have no boats and no bridges, no way to get to you. During this week we’ve spent in silent communication, I have been looking out at the water, staring at my distorted and rippling reflection, and insisting that the river is too deep to cross. But the real truth is that I could’ve trudged through it. The real truth is that I haven’t wanted to get muddy and wet. And tell you that I’m confused. And that I’m sorry.

But now I just have eggs and you just have bears, and I think we’re both clueless and sad. I know that the eggs aren’t just eggs to you and you know the bears aren’t just bears to me. The problem is that neither of us are daring to ask each other why we left what we left. And that neither of us are admitting what we hoped the other would do with our offerings.

I don’t know which problem, the lack of daring or the lack of admitting, is responsible for the other. But I don’t care about conclusions, or prizes, or penalties. I just want a hug and a laugh with you. I want to be neighbors again, true neighbors, not just people living next to each other.

When I was little I had a picture book about a mother polar bear and her cubs. A true story documented by a nature photographer. The mom had stayed with her cubs as long as she could, but eventually she had to find food for them. They all ventured out together, and then the mom and the cubs got separated by the breaking ice, and it was scary. But in the end, they all found their way back to each other. Polar bears are very skilled at crossing what is between them.

Today I imagined us opening up an antique shop together. You selling my glass polar bears and me cooking your eggs in the back for the customers. Omelets or frittatas, scrambled or soft-boiled, any way they like. And we’re a great attraction, and visitors flock to see our shop for themselves because it’s an odd little enterprise and no one’s heard of anything like it.

They are baffled and a little snobby about it at first, they shake their heads at us. What an inappropriate pairing, glass polar bears and chicken eggs don’t belong together in the same place.

But you and I are patient with them and we charm them with the delicate and light-bending glass and the fresh, home-cooked eggs, and then they stay. True innovation, true entrepreneurs, true neighbors! One had eggs! One had bears! How graciously they took from each other what the other had to give and made it meant to be!

We have stories written about us in the news and excellent reviews and a substantial profit. We pocket some and invest the rest in more eggs and more glass animals and renovations to our store. We stop worrying about walking on eggshells because we crack them all and laugh. It made me feel a lot better to imagine that.

I don’t know how to mend this. I’m just confused. I’m just sorry.

What are you imagining?