Being outdoors + people = perfect life
by Lorry Levine, Tour Guide
It’s a bit of a novelty for Bicycle Adventures to feature something of an autobiography from one of our guides. But as many of you know (and love) our delightful head guide Lorry Levine, we are proud to offer his thoughts on what makes life tick.
“Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”
— Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher
Like Kierkegaard, it’s this very notion of movement as the root of being that has enriched me throughout my life and continues to propel me forward. In my life experience, movement has taken many forms: cycling, backpacking, sailing, kayaking, walking. But just like a good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving, or like a good artist who lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants, I have striven to let movement be the teacher who has enriched, nourished and led.
As a child in the Midwest, I remember seeing pictures of mountains and rivers in the western US and yearning to get a feel for them. I knew my destiny was to live closer to nature and be in an environment where I could be outdoors nearly every day of the year. So after working my way through college and saving $500, I drove west in 1972 and found myself settling in Tucson, Arizona.
Every week I’d be exploring the surrounding mountain ranges, most often alone, and it was here that I commenced my true education. I’d had sundry jobs over the years: a school bus driver, a Santa Claus at a local department store, a drug and alcohol counselor, a social worker in the public defenders’ office, community college instructor, marketing and technical writer for a health care company. In 1974, my brother and I walked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. I led hiking and backpacking trips around southern Arizona and educational study tours for seniors into Mexico. I taught sociology on the Tohono O’odham reservation; I spent six years as a river guide in the Grand Canyon in the 1980’s. Along the way, I discovered that people always intrigued me. More than anything else, talking to people and working with people resonated with my soul.
Working with people in the out of doors, helping them to connect with the natural world, guiding them to let go of their “other” life; having the chance to be with them while viewing a breathtaking vista, climbing a summit, running a rapid – or watching their expressions change when they began to understand how the land was formed, what the rocks are made of, how a cactus survives in the desert, where bighorn sheep live, or how to read a rapid and use the water’s power to navigate through safely – these are things that motivate me. But there’s something more that makes it really thrilling: supporting people as they move a bit further out of their comfort zone – just a wee bit out on the edge; helping them to quiet their minds and listen and trust that their bodies can do much more than they believe they can. It’s the sheer beauty of sharing the outdoors with people. After an experience together, they stand a bit taller. There’s a bit more bounce in their step than when we first started out. They have a renewed sense of confidence about their abilities, their place in the world and their own personal lives.
My wife Sandra and I traveled internationally in the late 1990’s. We left the West coast and ambled still further westward for three years, finally returning to the North American continent. We spent a year camping on our own viewing wildlife in sub-Saharan Africa. We spent 6 months in India; we spent a year in Asia. Then 6 months in the Middle East. We volunteered wherever we could: in a leper colony in Indonesia, at a Mother Theresa orphanage in India. At schools and building projects. Again, it was about the people. Everywhere we were met with kindness, generosity and curiosity. We gained yet more connection with people, and more understanding of our humanness worldwide.
Then eight years ago I started leading bike trips for Bicycle Adventures: cycling in beautiful places, hiking, kayaking, whale watching, river rafting. Staying in lovely accommodations and eating high quality food. Working for an organization that mirrors my values and is committed to a top-notch outdoor experience. And most of all, getting to be with people while they’re on vacation, helping them to connect with their natural environment, and enjoying the passage of time together. It has been a culmination of all my life’s experiences put together into one outrageously fulfilling opportunity.
It’s a perfect life.
In 2006 Sandra and I chose to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary by living another dream and cycling across the northern US on our tandem, camping along the way. We’d never toured on the tandem before, but we wanted to see what was out there. With heaps of anxiety and trepidation we shoved off from Anacortes, Washington on Memorial Day. Before we left, people would ask us how we intended to return west once our trip concluded – but all we could think about were the impending Cascade Mountains and crossing that first county line. We were focused on each day’s ride, not the daunting 4,500-mile journey ahead or how to get home once it was over. Yet again, what we found was incredible heart and kindness from everyone we met and an outpouring of generosity. The kindness of strangers happened every day. And – surprise! – the trip turned out to be less about physical strength, and more about determination and will. We found ourselves celebrating our early August anniversary alongside floodlit Niagara Falls in Ontario.
And then early this year, while leading a BA New Zealand bike trip, I had a nasty fall. I fractured my hip, necessitating a reconstruction while hospitalized in Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island. I’d been healthy all my life, never a patient in a hospital. Not knowing how things would turn out, being terribly far away from home and relegated to a hospital bed for 3 weeks was an entirely new experience. But the pain was minimized by the fact that Sandra flew out on a day’s notice to support me, and my New Zealand friends were there for me every step of the way. Everyone at Bicycle Adventures extended enormous compassion and concern, and the staff at Christchurch Hospital was tender and caring (and humorous) beyond my wildest expectations. Once again, I experienced an outpouring of the kindness of strangers. The nursing staff would wheel me outside in my hospital bed to breathe the fresh air in the botanical gardens alongside the Avon River. In my hospital bed! I was blessed with a great surgeon (a fellow cyclist) and supporting staff who encouraged me to press on. But never did I lament my situation – because, of course, I would have never met the kind people along the way, or learned as much as I have, had that accident not happened.
I returned to Tucson in March and devoted myself to restoring health. Walking again became a gift. I devoted myself to swimming, then to riding a stationary bike. To taking it day by day, not thinking about tomorrow or 6 months from now; to just being in the moment. Then the day finally came in early June when I was able to lift my leg over the top bar of my bike. Then my first bike ride! Oh, the freedom! I was seeing everything for the first time again.
Now I’m back on the bike full time again and leading BA trips. I’m fully recovered, and the meaning of it all has deepened. For me, the perfect life is not about attaining anything. Or material acquisition. Or getting anywhere. It’s more about a reverence for life itself, about living and simply being in the moment. It’s about being fully present, wherever I am, with whoever I’m with in that moment. It’s about leaving it better than I find it. And it’s about giving all that kindness that’s been extended to me in the world to others. If we have 70, or 80 or 90 years on the planet, why not enjoy ourselves? Why not push ourselves? Keep moving. And like Kierkegaard, walk – or bike – ourselves into a state of well being.