It�s gotten to be almost like California around here, weatherwise, anyway. Another beautiful day. Ho-hum. It was cool enough that I even made AJ bring a sweater with us to the playground this morning, although I wasn�t mean enough to make him actually wear it.

Today�s playground is one we often visit en route to the supermarket, which was our ultimate destination. The playground itself is old and kind of funky, but the setting is spectacular. It�s right on the river under a grove of ancient oak trees and a couple of blocks from a railroad bridge. Any location where one can see multiple forms of transportation simultaneously (today�s visit allowed us views of cars driving down a street on the other side of the river, trains going over the bridge, motorboats, jet skis and kayaks on the river itself, and even a couple of small airplanes flying overhead) is sure to be a little boy magnet, and indeed, the last few visits to this particular playground have found AJ in the company of at least two other boys about his age.

Today he seemed to find a real kindred spirit in a little boy named D. who was already playing when we arrived. AJ was shy at first and insisted on observing D. from the swings, about 25 yards from the area around the jungle gym and slides where D. seemed to be engaged in an elaborate game involving several large sticks. As AJ flew through the air, he offered a running commentary on D.�s activities. �Look, Mommy, he�s got a stick! I wonder what he�s going to do with that stick. Look, he�s going down the slide! Wow, he went fast!�

Eventually, I convinced AJ to go over and play on the slides. Within a few minutes, the two were running around after each other screaming, �Chase!� and giggling. AJ got D. to race with him on adjacent slides, although they were both laughing too much to know or care who won. Soon afterwards they came running over to me and D�s babysitter holding hands and grinning. D. announced, �We�re friends!� �That�s great!� I said. The babysitter asked, �D., what�s your new friend�s name?� D. looked thoughtful and turned to stare at AJ before confessing that he didn�t know. �What�s your name?� he yelled at AJ from about 6 inches away. �AJ!� he yelled back. And then they were off and running, playing tag, hide-and-seek and several other games the point of which eluded me. After a while, they tired of sprinting and yelling and sat at the bottom of the slide, their backs to where I was standing to keep an eye on things. I peeked around the back of the slide and saw that they were deep in conversation. I could see AJ gesticulating. Occasionally D. would put a hand on AJ�s shoulder and nod very seriously. Later I asked AJ what they had been talking about. He said, �Oh, you know, stuff. I told him that the sign said, �Danger, thin ice, no skating!� and then I asked him to play I-spy and he said yes and then we played I-spy. Then we dug a hole.�

Both boys wailed when it was time to go. It seemed tragic to separate them, but we had to leave in order to run our errands and be back home in time for lunch and a nap. We�re hoping to run into each other again next week.

It amazes me the speed with which AJ makes friends. Kids at this age seem, for the most part anyway, to be so non-judgmental. Things that adults worry might be barriers � differences in appearance or abilities � are total non-issues. The only question that really seems to matter is �Will you play with me?� All the rest are completely negotiable. And they are master negotiators. Where last year I was the sharing cop, this year AJ out-shares me any day of the week. Although he still has personal space issues � he doesn�t like it when someone comes down a slide too quickly after him � he�s more often, as today with D. willing to sacrifice his space as long as the playmate makes it clear that he wants to play with him.

I remember a few of those friendships where you didn�t really know anything about the other person, but you knew what mattered. When I was 9, I lived in central London, right across the street from Regent�s Park. The park was my home. I knew every inch of it like the back of my hand. Although the zoo was a big attraction, my favorite spot was quite near my house. The outside of the park was fenced banded by a hedge. On the outside of the hedge was sinister looking wrought iron fencing. The inside of the hedge was rimmed in cyclone fencing, through which branches of the hedge protruded as if being squished into a sandwich. To get into the park, we had to walk a couple of blocks to the zebra crossing with a light and cross the street to the gate. Once inside, there was a playground to the right. But if we turned left and ran back the way we had come but on the inside of the fence, we would eventually come to a small grove of trees, with one whose branches swept the ground to make a cave. And directly behind that tree, out of view from the rest of the park, there was a hole in the cyclone fence. The day my brother and I found this hole, we crawled inside just to see if we could fit around the roots of the hedge. We could. And it was the perfect place for watching pedestrians. We could see ankles and shoes and the faces of dogs. No one ever noticed us.

We began to bring things to our hole in the hedge. I had recently read My Side of the Mountain, a story about a boy who lives in the wilderness in a tree. We used the book like a survival manual and began to lay in supplies. We found a large, flat rock and dug a hole underneath it where we stored important things in discarded Swan Vestas matchboxes. One day, when we lifted up the stone, we found a note.

It seems that another boy had discovered our hiding place. But rather than ransack it, he understood. He touched nothing, but began to add his own offerings. We saved our pennies to buy toffee at the tube station sweet shop and left them under the rock. He left a set of iridescent glass marbles. We concocted stories about him and wrote them down. He left the next chapter for us to read. This exchange went on for at least two years without us ever once meeting. Then suddenly, the notes stopped, with no explanation. We wondered for a while and worried that something had happened or that we�d said something to offend. Gradually, we started to outgrow the space. My brother and I could no longer both be inside at once. I moved into the cave tree. A year later, we moved back to America.

We never found out the boy�s name or what had become of him, but I think of him often. Many years later, I returned to London on a choir tour. During a free afternoon, I set out on my own to see my old home. I was staying nearby, so I headed through the park back to my old stomping grounds. I came to a halt when I found the cave tree � still there and more cavernous than ever. But most astonishing was the hole in the fence � it, too, was still there, although I could no longer fit inside. I stuck my head inside and searched for the flat rock, half hoping to find a Swan Vestas matchbox underneath, but the rock was gone. There was only a faint depression remaining in the earth where the hole had been.

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