I had just turned off the burner under the kettle for my morning tea when my dog ran down the hallway and started barking.

It wasn’t even 9:00 AM yet. It seemed too early for a UPS or Amazon Prime delivery. Besides, a delivery person would just buzz me from downstairs. I wasn’t actually sure I heard what provoked the barking.

I tuned up my concentration. I heard one of the other dogs in my building howl. (Three out of six of us have dogs.) It seemed that they were egging each other on. Maybe they were complaining about their owners spending too much time at home these past few weeks or were laughing about how funny humans looked covering their faces with bandanas or masks.

Mixed in to the soundtrack of dueling canines, I thought I heard a knock at my front door. Odd as that would be, I decided to check it out.

It was my downstairs neighbor holding a small lidded carryout container. We always exchange greetings when we run into each other in the parking pad behind the building, but we don’t seek out opportunities to talk. When Liz and her family moved in a couple years ago, she invited me to take herbs from the planters on her back deck, but I would not have expected her to venture up so the second floor landing—and knock.

My first thought was that I was glad I had a clean tee and bra on. With the days blurring together as they have been, getting dressed as if I would be seen was not automatic.

We both laughed as the barking and howling died down.

“Do you like carrot cake?” she asked.

I nodded blankly.

“Do you prefer it with raisins and nuts or without?” she went on. “I brought you both kinds.  We decided to make some last night.”

I could imagine her daughters, and even her husband, bonding in the kitchen over a family cooking project. I looked through the clear lid of the container she handed me and saw two generous squares of carrot cake. Nothing fancy, just a good old-fashioned recipe, cream cheese frosting and all.

I smiled, confessing that, although not normally much of a carb eater, I have been giving in to my cravings for comfort food lately. Pancakes with berries or cookies had become a fairly common guilty pleasure.

My neighbor smiled, saying something to the effect of “When this lock-down is over, everybody will have to go on a diet.” She reminded me that the cake freezes well.

Then, she looked at me. No masks covered our faces.

She asked, “How are you doing?”

I didn’t exactly gush with unwanted details like the annoying self-consumed person assigned to the seat next to yours on a full cross-country flight invariably does, but I was taken by this invitation to talk about such things.

I wondered if she heard me cry while talking on the phone to friends earlier in the week. The hardwood floor between our homes has proven not to be a very good sound barrier.

“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I have my good days and bad days. Sometimes, I just feel sad. I feel sort of guilty. Although I have challenges, I haven’t lost anyone close to me because of the virus. And I have it so much better than many.”

She nodded and said, “I think other people feel that way, too.”

We chatted for another couple minutes. With just a little prodding, she talked about her new job, which she navigated to before the economic crisis really bloomed. I shared a little about my experience living alone during this period.

Not heroic by any means. Not worthy of a short parade down my block or a balcony serenade every evening. I don’t need a check-in like an elderly person or someone with a health condition might.

Still, I, and probably others who live alone, don’t always know what to do with their feelings; with their grief and sadness, with their guilt, with their sense of pride over figuring out something themselves when they would normally reach out for help.

It’s only natural, I think, to want someone to be a witness to your life. I felt very grateful for the knock on my door.

Five minutes of face-to-face time with a neighbor, while observing shelter in place rules, is no small thing.