“Camel trips, as I suspected all along, and as I was about to have confirmed, do not being or end: they mere change form.”
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
“I liked myself this way, it was such a relief to be free of disguises an prettiness and attractiveness. Above all that horrible, false, debilitating attractiveness that women hide behind. I puled my hat down over my ears so that they stuck out beneath it. 'I must remember this whn I get back. I must not fall into that trap again.' I must let people see me as I am. Like this? Yes, why not like this. But then I realized hat the rules pertaining to one set of circumstances do not necessarily pertain to another. Back there, this would just be another disguise. Back there, there was no nakedness, no one could afford it. Everyone had their social personae well fortified...”
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
“And here I was at the end of my trip, with everything just as fuzzy and unreal as the beginning. It was easier for me to see myself in Rick's lens, riding down to the beach in that cliched sunset, just as it was easier for me to stand with my friends and wave goodbye to the loopy woman with the camels, the itching smell of the dust around us, and in our eyes the feat that we had left so much unsaid. There was an unpronounceable joy and an aching sadness to it. It had all happened too suddenly. I didn't believe this was the end at all. There must be some mistake. Someone had just robbed me of a couple of month in there somewhere. There was not so much an anticlimactic quality about the arrival at the ocean, as the overwhelming feeling that I had somehow misplaced the penultimate scene.”
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
“There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns—small intuitive flashes, when you know you have done something correct for a change, when you think you are on the right track. I watched a pale dawn streak the cliffs with Day-glo and realized this was one of them. It was a moment of pure, uncomplicated confidence—and lasted about ten seconds.”
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
Shan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Shan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Shan
Lists liked by Shan











