children on the playground

"Hi. I'm Archer, what's your name?" he asks the first boy he sees at the playground. He's fearless when it comes to making friends. Meeting new people. The park is for playmates. So he immediately finds his.

"Want to play with me?"

"Yes."

So they run along, howling, grabbing, kicking up sand. Chasing after each other they are oblivious to their differences, of first language, race and family income. Of height and weight, politics, religion. There is no cultural divide. No preconceptions. Judgment. No isms.

A little girl watches them chase each other. She leans against the swings as they dash across the playground, until they ask if she wants to play too.

The girl nods her head.

"We're playing hide and seek. Want to hide?"

"Yes," she says joining them.

And so they go running off, the three of them. Until they become four and five and six and seven. Until they are eight children darting up slides and down poles, hanging from monkey bars, pushing each other on swings, best friends who moments earlier were complete strangers. Who moments from now, will go home to different neighborhoods. Say goodbye and likely never see each other again.

And then I look around at us: the parents. All of us segregated, separate, mismatched shoes with laces untied, pretending not to notice that our children have become playmates who hold hands.

For our children, it's what brings them together that matters most. The games they play and the numbers they count and who's turn it is to hide.

For us, we are too busy suspecting and comparing, drawing attention to all the things that differentiate us, until we stand alone and inhibited, mumbling to ourselves against the chain-link fence.

But why?

Because we speak different languages.

Because we come from different worlds.

And different sides of Western Avenue.

Because it's dangerous to cross the railroad tracks.

So many reasons we have.

All of them are wrong.

Just ask our children.

GGC