Rediscovering adventure

By Eleanor Wolf
The Portland Upside
March 2010

Eleanor Wolf dusts off her wagon in preparation for a day of adventure around Portland with her friends and fellow members of The Big Kids Club.

One typical rainy day in Portland, five of my friends and I got together to catch up on one another’s lives. It was too cold and windy to go out, so we decided to stay inside, perhaps to watch an old movie. Getting up to click on the TV after our tea and cookies, I suddenly heard myself ask, “What the heck are we doing?”

Dorothy, the most outspoken of us, looked up.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we could be doing so much more with our lives than just sitting here complaining and wasting time.”

Now that I’d gotten everyone’s attention, I continued.

“What if we started our own club?”

Everyone’s eyes widened and after a moment of silence, Janette chimed, “Yeah…we could call it the Big Kids Club…you know, for the kid in all of us!”

Then Arte, the intellectual, asked, “Does that mean we’ll all have to start acting crazy?”

For a moment we sat quietly, but I could practically hear the wheels turning.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Susan. “I could sure use some play time.”

“Hey, that’s it! We could have a weekly play date!” I chimed. “I’ll drag out my old Radio Flyer like I used to when I was a kid.”

“You mean you have one of those too?” Janette laughed. “I’ve been trying to think up an excuse to pull mine out of the basement. It seems so lonely down there.”

Well, that’s how it all started a year ago. Just five women over 30 wondering what to do with themselves on a rainy day. From that two-hour session we came up with a series of ideas that have snowballed into a regular series of adventures.

All that’s required in the club is to bring a journal and pen, a camera, and a sack lunch. We make up the rest as we go along. Membership is free. The only prerequisite is to be spontaneous.

We all have an inner child just waiting for a chance to go out and play. It doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, either. A child has attributes that have long been forgotten in most of us. But if we think back, we realize that spontaneity and a sense of adventure are virtues worth rekindling.

For an idea of what our adventures are like, imagine a sunny day in Portland. We all wear our favorite color. Some of us go so far as to don a crazy hat. With our sack lunches and cameras, we pile into one car and then pick a direction. Our mission is to look for interesting places to stop. One of those places happens to be Washington Park and after our peanut butter sandwiches and fruit, we decide to take pictures.

“I’m going to write a poem,” says Janette. “What do you think I should call it?”

“It’s your poem,” I point out. “Why are you asking us?”

“Wait a minute,” Dorothy counters. “That’s a great idea. Let’s all write a poem together!”

So for the next twenty minutes, we each take turns adding a line.

Okay, so we didn’t win any poetry contests, but that isn’t the point. Our goal is to let go of our grown-up ideas for a day. A child doesn’t worry over semantics or politics or the price of eggs. A child can find interesting things to do with the least amount of stimulus. She is in awe of the world around her. She speaks up for herself. That’s what we’re attempting to recapture—the fluid, free-thinking, joyous sense of simply being alive!

After we’ve written our poem, we head south on McLoughlin Boulevard toward Oregon City. When we get to Gladstone, we stop at Cross Park.

“Look at what I found!” Janette calls. “Just what I’ve been looking for.”

Gathering around, we marvel at the smooth stone that has attracted her.

“Oh!” Dorothy coos. “I have to find one of those!”

Off she goes looking for the stone “with her name on it,” as she puts it. Like ducks pecking at the ground, we fan out and begin hunting down our special stones. In the process, we find an assortment of treasures, bits of plastic and glass that can be used in the collage we’ve decided we’ll create to commemorate our first fabulous day in the club.

To date, we’ve managed to write several children’s stories, create a photographic journal of our adventures, and honor the beauty so abundant in the Portland area. We alternate homes when the weather doesn’t cooperate. On those days we make cocoa and popcorn and watch children’s movies. We blow up balloons, dance to crazy music and sing our hearts out. We’ve even inspired others to start their own clubs and to share ideas for interesting adventures of their own.

Portland is a small town, but it has so many nooks and crannies. If you’d like to join our club or just come to get new ideas, we’re open to sharing in a big way. I’m certain we’ll never run out of places to explore, things to discover, people to meet. Simon says, Go ahead! Unleash the child in yourself!

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Eleanor Wolf writes a weekly column for The Coast Times. She is a passionate advocate of living with presence of mind. She has two grown children and a grandson, and lives with her husband in Milwaukie, Oregon.