inspired

inspire: to influence, move, or guide ; to spur on, impel, motivate ; to breathe , inhale

***

I just finished Miles From Nowhere by Barbara Savage, an inspiring account of one couple’s bike ride around the world.  In 1977, Barbara and Larry Savage gave up their apartment, sold everything, and set off on a 2-year adventure on touring bikes.  They meandered up from California, Oregon & Washington to British Columbia, zipped across the Midwest, and then pedaled down the East Coast to Florida, where they caught a plane to Spain.  They circled through all of the Iberian Peninsula, hitting up Morocco and Portugal along the way, and then went to the British Isles.  After England, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, they went back to the Continent and pedaled all the way down through Germany, over the Alps into Austria, and down into Italy, where they caught a plane to Egypt.  They went through India, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Tahiti before ending their trip and flying back to the US.  The author filled each chapter with anecdotes of the trials and hilarities of their trip, with descriptions of the new places they saw and the new people they met, and with insights into what it means to be a traveler, an outsider, a companion, and a friend.

It’s enough to make me want to buy a nice road bike, work my rear into super-fit shape, and get on the road!  The best part of my week now is my 40-minute bike ride to work down a narrow road lined with almond, olive, and carob groves.  Luckily, I’ll be living only about 7 miles away from my summer job, so if I get up in time, I hope to continue biking to work.

***

Two videos which inspire me with a reverence toward the natural world and our place in it:

The Mountain by Terje Sorgjerd 

The Love Letter by Fitz Cahall and Bryan Smith

(this video is too long to embed in my blog; click on the link to watch the video at vimeo.com)

The second video (The Love Letter)  highlights my feelings toward nature and, specifically, the mountains.  After studying in the Willamette Valley in Oregon for three years, spending nine months in the overwhelming, polluted city of Quito, and now living within spitting distance of the Mediterranean for eight months, every chance I get to go back to the mountains is a personal refueling moment.  I feel embraced, I feel renewed.  I love looking out my window and being able to name every peak.  I cannot wait to be back in my home mountain ranges of Montana and Wyoming (the Absarokas, Gallatins, Crazies, Bangtails, Bridgers, Beartooths, Tobacco Roots, Biterroots, Madisons & Spanish Peaks, Wind Rivers, Bighorns, and, of course, the Tetons).

A few quotes from The Love Letter to leave you with:

       ·         while talking about leaving behind the craziness of regular, regulated life, and jumping into the wilderness: “my mind is a dry fly, about to be swallowed whole,”

       ·         about the Sierra Nevadas: “There is no way we could do this range justice with a single trip.  This is a place to grow old with, to return to, again and again.  These mountains leave us striving, instead of satiated, curious about what lays [sic] over a pass to the west.  Our hearts are our wilderness.  They contain all the intricacies of a mountain range: high, windswept passes, the quiet, sun-warmed meadows.  To love a place, to love a person, is to know all these things, and be surprised when you stumble into an undiscovered aspect.”