The Slit That Brought Me Oliver

I came home tonight to a Christmas card tucked in my door. It was from my neighbors to the north. The card asked me to dine with them "sometime soon" since Oliver considers me one of his best friends. Oliver is 5.

Throughout the summer Oliver and I became "best friends" through the fence, I with an eye close to my side of a half-inch crack and Oliver on his side, squeezing his 5-year-old passions and heartbreaks, excitement and worry, over to me through that tiny slit. There is only enough of an opening for one pupil at a time, so it was first the right, then the left, then back again--an entire anima mundi pressing passionately into my world from one bright eye.

Once revved up, his little conversation engine was fully engaged--a true study in perpetual motion. I'd listen for a bit then go back to my yard work. But that little engine-that-could never stopped. It took only an occasional, "I see!" or "Oh, really!" to shift him into a higher gear.

I squeezed a DVD of Burrowing Owls through the fence crack and he squeezed back a foam key ring. Back and forth, we exchanged tiny gifts--none thicker than that slit. The most precious was his phone number laboriously and hopefully trusted to a hot pink post-it note.

It wasn't long before we moved to the front yard as the waning summer blanched my desert garden. He chatted about everything while I pulled up dead sunflowers, trimmed the yarrow and pruned Buffalo Berries. I can't say what "everything" is because I couldn't hear him very well (my bad ear failed me), but reciprocity wasn't important. If wanted me to participate, he'd reshape his question until he got an answer that made sense to him. Often that meant reshaping the decibels, which was helpful for me.

At the end of the summer, he plucked up the courage to ask me why I had never phoned him, so I went inside and called--three times. I couldn't get a clear line that night, so tried again the next night. He was so relieved.

A month ago, I gave him some geodes and a couple of pieces of pyrite that I found while cleaning out the shed. I'm pretty sure that authenticated the "best" part of our friendship.

I'm really looking forward to dinner.