What You Can Learn from Robyn Davidson’s “Tracks”
In the past few years I have found myself collecting more and more memoirs and autobiographies written by women. I think my adoration of this sub-genre began with Tina Fey’s Bossypants back in 2011, and it’s just grown since as I’ve found more and more compelling voices and stories. Some of the authors you may have heard of yourself are: Fey, Amy Poehler, Mindy Kaling, Allie Brosh, Marjane Satrapi, Phoebe Gloeckner, Caitlin Moran, Kristen Newman, Patti Smith, Cheryl Strayed, Carrie Brownstein… and on and on and on. If you don’t recognize some names, I highly recommend seeking them out.
There is one woman, however, and one book in particular, that has floated under the radar of this genre for several years. Her name is Robyn Davidson, and her book is Tracks. The subtitle of her book, and the reason it is so compelling, is “A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback.” Well, that’ll get my attention!
The slim book depicts her relatively random decision in the late 1970s to walk across the Australian Outback — a harsh desert with countless dangerous wildlife — with nothing but herself, four camels that she had trained to carry her pack, and her beloved dog Digby.
Last year I purchased a copy of Tracks and proceeded to mark it up, highlighting the many passages that I found touching or insightful or relatable. I don’t mark up my books easily, but this one was too full of good stuff not to.
A major reason I enjoy reading memoirs and autobiographies written by women is because they are often the ones who have the lessons and life experience I want to hear about, and that I can understand. This is especially true for Davidson, who conveys through her writing her strong, determined personality as well as how, well, normal she is. She frequently makes clear that she isn’t “special” because she did this; anyone could do it, really. She simply decided to do it and followed through. She encounters plenty of obstacles, difficulties and heartbreaks along the way but she makes clear she continues because she feels she must, not because she has any unique strength.
Below is a compiled list of various statements and thoughts by Davidson in her book. The book has a meditative, but strong voice that will make you think and ponder the way she did during her journey. These quotes are an example of that, and there are countless more insights worth reading throughout the book. We can learn a lot from Tracks, but one of the major lessons imparted in there is that there is always more we can learn about ourselves.
On being the only woman in a male-centric environment: Davidson begins her journey in the small, rough outback town of Alice Springs. It is less than amenable to women and minorities, and she describes her experience with her usual sardonic wit:
“One does not have to delve too deeply to discover why some of the world’s angriest feminists breathed crisp blue Australian air during their formative years, before packing their kangaroo-skin bags and scurrying over to London or New York or any place where the antipodean machismo would fade gently from their battle-scarred consciousnesses like some grisly nightmare at dawn. Anyone who has worked in a men-only bar in Alice Springs will know what I mean.” (Davidson 18)
On friendship: Before leaving, Davidson spends some time with her friends. Her friend Nancy is happy to support her, but is also worried, and very prepared to miss her. Her parting words are an important lesson for all friends to remember:
“It’s important that we leave each other and the comfort of it, and circle away, even though it’s hard sometimes so that we can come back and swap information about what we’ve learnt even if what we do changes us and we risk not recognizing each other when we return.” (36)
On why she is doing this:
“I had also been vaguely bored with my life and its repetitions — the half-finished, half-hearted attempts at different jobs and various studies; had been sick of carrying around the self-indulgent negativity which was so much the malaise of my generation, my sex and my class.. I had made the choice instinctively and only later given it meaning.” (37)
This is something to think about: how many choices in your life were truly instinctual? We always have to assign meaning to our decisions eventually, but when we actually made the choices weren’t they just what our gut told us was best? Sometimes we forget that we run on instinct more than reason. Speaking of…
“I believe the subconscious always know what is best. It is our conditioned, vastly overrated rational mind which screws everything up.” (41)
In other words, don’t over-think your actions. You ultimately know what you need.
On travel photography: Davidson is frequently annoyed by Rick, the photographer hired to document her trips at various intervals. About him, she says:
“He was a nice enough boy… one of those amoral immature photojournalists who hop from trouble spot to trouble spot on the globe without ever having time to see where they are or be affected by it.” (83)
This, of course, may not always be true of those in Rick’s profession, but it is something important to remember: especially in this age of social media emphasis, it might be tempting to go to a new place largely for the amazing pictures and superficial pleasures you will have. But travelling will not affect you the way it should unless you let the location get under your skin and make the effort to learn about where you are.
On cameras:
“Never let it be said that the camera does not lie. It lies like a pig in mud. It captures the projections of whoever happens to be using it, never the truth.” (136)
As with all art, it is important to remember that there is someone behind the camera or the pen or the computer, and to take into account the influence they might have had on what we are perceiving.
On the importance of learning about the land you live on: One of Davidson’s favorite new acquaintances made during her journey is Eddie, an Aboriginal man who accompanies her during a small stretch of her trek. About him, she writes:
“His links with the special places we passed gave him a kind of energy, a joy, a belonging… He knew every particle of that country as well as he knew his own body. He was at home in it totally, at one with it and the feeling began rubbing off on to me. Time melted — became meaningless. I don’t think I have ever felt so good in my entire life. He made me notice things I had not noticed before — noises, tracks. And I began to see how it all fitted together. The land was not wild but tame, bountiful, benign, giving, as long as you knew how to see it, how to be part of it.” (178)
On “you do you”:
“In my own eyes, I was becoming sane, normal, healthy, yet to anyone else’s I must have appeared if not certifiably mad then at least irretrievably weird, eccentric, sun-struck and bush-happy.” (186)
I like this quote because it emphasizes how important it can be to only go by your own marker for happiness and sanity. Do you feel happy? Good, then who cares how you appear to others, or whether you fit their description of a “sane, happy person?” As the teens say: you do you.
On hiding your real self:
“Everyone had their social personae well fortified until they got so drunk and stupid that their nakedness was ugly… Why did people circle one another, consumed with either fear or envy, when all that they were fearing or envying was illusion?” (202)
Anyone who has ever spilled their inner thoughts after too many cocktails will understand this. It’s always embarrassing when you think back on it — “God, I was so emotional and I told those people all those things!” If we were honest with others about how emotional, or thoughtful, or anxious we truly were we wouldn’t have to hide it and then let it explode at happy hour. This statement is also a variation on the idea that “no one knows what they’re doing.” Try to feel less envious or afraid or in awe of someone, because they are likely trying to present a “normal face” as much as you are.
On love:
“I had learnt what love was. That love wanted the best possible for those you cared for even if that excluded yourself. That before, I had wanted to possess people without loving them, and now I could love them and wish them the best without needing them.” (227)
On the public response to her journey:
“And now a myth was being created where I would appear different, exceptional. Because society needed it to be so. Because if people started living out their fantasies, and refusing to accept the fruitless boredom that is offered them as normality, they would become hard to control. And that term “camel LADY.” Had I been a man, I’d be lucky to get a mention in the Wiluna Times, let alone international press coverage. Neither could I imagine them coining the phrase “camel gentleman.” “Camel lady” had that nice patronizing belittling ring to it. Labeling, pigeon-holing — what a splendid trick it is.” (243)
Davidson’s refusal to become the special “camel lady” people wanted her to be makes her even more interesting to me. She stays herself the entire time and doesn’t fall for the labels others give her.
On what to take from her experience: Ultimately what the reader has to gain from this experience is evident in two passages: First, her declaration that:
“One really could do anything one had decided to do whether it were changing a job, moving to a new place, divorcing a husband or whatever, one really could act to change and control one’s life, and the procedure, the process, was its own reward.” (38)
And finally:
“The two important things that I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision.” (261)
When I first read the book, I had traveled alone for the first time just the year before. My experience was a lot shorter than Robyn Davidson’s — and less challenging, by far — but it was also exhilarating, exciting and surprising as to how easy I found it. An unfortunate message frequently drilled into young people’s minds is that it is bad, or at the very least weird, to do anything alone. To travel, to eat, to go to a concert or movie, etc. In the past two years since my solo experience I have done all those things alone at least a couple times. Reading Davidson’s book was thrilling because so many of her thoughts echoed mine when I was travelling alone. It really gives you a chance to look at yourself free of any outside influence and, even better, to do exactly what you want to do, no matter how trivial or odd. Experience likes those help you open your eyes to the truth of your self and your environment.
Davidson’s book shouldn’t just enable you to admire her and what she has done, it should also inspire in you the same independent streak that took her across the Outback. What was so important about her journey was that she found a place free of outside regulations by society or media. She was able to see clearly for the first time the world that she lived in and how she fit into it. I hope reading her words inspires you to do the same.
Source: Davidson, Robyn. Tracks. 2014 ed. New York: Random House LLC, 1981. Print. Vintage Departures Editions.
All photographs property of Rick Smolan/Against All Odds Productions and are used here for illustration only
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The author is active on Twitter @yourbeth_friend and writes weekly about TV and Movies here
