Florist Roams Domino Park with Friend, Unchaperoned, and Returns to Daddy with Exquisite Bouquet

It was curious when Kina strolled up to me on Saturday and asked specifically to be allowed to walk alone through the park with her friend Runa. We’ve been talking a lot about independence lately (see also last week’s Sunday Kina about taking the trash out on her own) and I know Kina is fascinated to see teenaged girls walking around in packs. This felt important to her—and not so terribly different from letting her play unsupervised in a large playground.

And so, keeping in mind that this was a fairly well-contained park with few distractions, sharp objects, or large untended chasms, I let her go, with no particular constraints, other than not to leave the park—nothing but, “Go. Fine. I’ll be here.”

I should not have been surprised by the mild sense of panic that followed this heroic act of confident parenting, not knowing exactly where Kina was or what she was up to, so I distracted myself with talking to Runa’s dad (who does not, he reminded me after first seeing this edition, have bangs) about the inner life of our daughters until they returned, some ten minutes later.

The two girls rounded the corner of the playground in great leaping strides, as though they had not seen us in years. They asked us for gummy worms. In her left hand, Kina wielded a perfect bouquet of local foliage, all plucked from the gardens that stretched from one end of the five-block-long park to the other.

She offered this gift to me, then gave me a big hug—a reward for her independence, newly won. It was not lost on me that this moment was fleeting—the coexistence of joy in her own freedom and gratitude for the parent who offered it up. It won’t be long before she stops asking, I suppose. It won’t be forever that she’ll bring me flowers.

It’s enough that she isn’t afraid, enough that she has friends she can trust, enough that she knows how to make a bouquet—in case, just maybe, it would make her father feel good. That’s enough for now.

dad