Pack Your Adventure Bag

When I was a little girl, I had an adventure bag. It included a compass that was made to look like a pack of gum, only you slid it open and the compass appeared. It had silly putty, for, naturally, copying text from the newspaper. And, eventually, when I got really serious about my exploring, my pièce de rêsistance was my walkie talkie set.  

My childhood best friend and I would traipse around the neighborhood, around the woods, around the cornfield. We’d keep our adventure bags handy, never knowing when we might need to study the bark of the oak tree with a magnifying glass.

Due to back to back travel, I joked that I was actually living in Pennsylvania this June and only dropping by New York City for a few days. But when I got back from trip one and looked at the calendar and realized I only had one weekend day in the city the entire month, I realized I needed to plan a “Welcome to the Neighborhood” tour asap. 

For the uninitiated, I’ve been spending one day each month exploring an area in or around New York City that I’ve never been to before. That’s how I found myself searching train times at 11:30 PM and preparing for an adventure. 

I won’t spoil it yet—I still need to make the video and write the post about the neighborhood tour. But the thing that tickled me more than the rally for a spontaneous trip was the familiarity of packing my bag.

I’m going to be gone all day. Okay, I’ve got my book, my water bottle, snacks, and sunscreen. 

Later that day, as I sat on a stump at the park, hydrating and nibbling on a protein bar, I found myself overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude. This is what makes me feel like a kid. To wake up on a Sunday morning and decide to do something because it’s fun… because it’ll bring you joy… because you can. 

May this serve as your reminder to think about those beautiful things from our younger lives and to set into motion a plan to experience them once more.