It was a Saturday afternoon at the park near our house. Nothing special about it – overcast, a bit damp, the usual handful of parents standing around with takeaway coffees. The other kids were doing what kids do – climbing, chasing, shouting, falling off things. Kya was crouched beside a bench, lining up acorns.
Not tossing them. Not throwing them at pigeons. Lining them up. One by one, nudging each into position with her fingertip until they formed a perfect little row along the edge of the path. She must have placed ten or twelve of them before I even realised what she was doing. She wasn’t rushing. She wasn’t bored. She was completely absorbed.
A boy ran past and kicked one out of line. She didn’t cry. She didn’t look up. She just reached over, found another acorn, and put it back. Exact same spot. Exact same gap. As if restoring something important that had been briefly disturbed.
I sat on the bench and watched her for a long time. The other parents were chatting about school admissions and swimming lessons. I was watching my daughter arrange acorns with the precision of a jeweller, and I felt something shift inside me. Not worry, exactly. Something quieter than that. A kind of recognition.
I’d noticed things before, of course. The way she ran in circles at the garden – not chasing anything, just looping the same path over and over, arms out, completely content. The way she’d hold a stone up to the light and turn it slowly, as if studying every angle. The way she didn’t really play with the other children at toddler group – she played near them, in her own world, perfectly happy. I’d noticed all of it, but I hadn’t joined the dots.
The acorns joined them for me.
Sitting there on that bench, I stopped seeing a collection of quirks and started seeing a pattern. Not a problem to solve. A pattern to understand. Everything she did – the circling, the lining up, the deep focus on tiny details – wasn’t random. It was her. Her way of making sense of a world that was probably louder, brighter, and more chaotic than she needed it to be.
I didn’t understand it then – but looking back, those were not random moments. They were windows into how she sees the world.
I think a lot of parents go through a version of this moment. The shift from “that’s a bit different” to “oh – that’s who she is.” It’s not dramatic. There’s no thunderclap. It’s more like adjusting a lens and suddenly everything comes into focus.
I didn’t say anything to anyone that afternoon. I just sat with it for a while. Kya finished her line of acorns, stood up, brushed her knees, and took my hand to walk home. She didn’t look back at the acorns. She didn’t need to. The making of the line was the point. The order, the rhythm, the feeling of things being exactly where they should be.
What others might see as quirks – I now see as her compass. Her way of feeling grounded. Her way of being.
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