Here's my recipe for becoming yourself and living an original life:
1.) Get a concept. Find or create one that you love beyond anything else. It has to be your #1 goal, love, priority and desire. Your primary need. Your concept is your theme. It will be your guide.
2.) Develop this concept by LIVING it. Do whatever it takes. Give up and get whatever it takes to live your concept.
Part of my concept involves being "primitive." Max, the Russian, made me aware of this aspect of my life a few months ago when we were talking by a big tree one cold winter night in Boulder, Colorado. He said: "I like the primitive life." So do I. That's why I camp out and live with as few possessions and on as little money as I can. That's why I have given up having a home. That's why I have no car and take public transportation or hitchhike.
My conceptual life is about being:
~~~American (everyone comes from somewhere, even if it is several places--where a person grows up, where s/he loves to be, where s/he wants to visit).
~~~Woman.
~~~Traveller (Nomad; Gypsy). Irish, Scottish, Scandinavian and other Travellers have "dropped out" of conventional society. They/we have created a new lifestyle. We are the New Nomads. (See "Technomads" or NuNomads" online.)
~~~Location-independent (don't have or want a "home," as in "house" or personal shelter/personal space). I camp out, stay with family and friends, use online sites like couchsurfing.org, go to hostels, and occasionally go to hotels. I have lived (with my children) in trailers, RVs, city apartments, SRO (single-room occupancy) hotels in cities, rural cabins, millionaire-neighborhood homes, and other places. Not with the very richest of the rich or the poorest of the poor (the two groups hardest to infiltrate in the U.S.). I still love visiting people's homes all over the world and seeing how they live. And then I want to leave and be on my way down the road. I always return to a few home-bases:
a.) Where my kids and grandkids live: Ventura County, California and Boulder County, Colorado.
b.) Place(s) I love: New Orleans, Louisiana.
All, so far, in the U.S.A.
~~~Computer-assisted (I rely on computers for connections, social networking, places to stay, information, buying travel tickets, and more).
~~~Neo-minimalist (everything I own is in my medium-sized backpack).
Eat your heart out, Max, wherever you are, you louse-headed rogue, because I am wearing super-tight, spandex-type pants (from the thrift shop). Hot pink. I don't want to wear make-up anymore. I am foregoing jewelry because I will soon be travelling in Mexico and Central America, and I don't want to be robbed of even costume jewelry. I am glad you're not here because I don't want ANYthing or ANYone in my life who doesn't like me the way I am. And I don't know if you would or not. So it's better that you're not around.
Surprise! My big butt is suddenly a source of pride for me. I am cultivating it, growing it. In New Orleans, the Black Gals know that lots of men LOVE women with big butts! Big butts are sexy and awesome. Those women compete for the best big butt! Some butts are like shelves, they just stick right straight out! In Southern California, where I am right now, big butts are shameful, ridiculous, and a woman with one is an object of pity. I won't ever buy into that theory again. I don't like it, and who can shake their booty without a big butt?
My big belly is also a joyful work-in-progress since I read The Spice Necklace. One of the Caribbean island women bragged about her belly and how it showed her love of food. Food equals sensuality. Can women who don't love food be good lovers?
I had three-and-a-half months of really good sex a few years ago, and I lost thirty pounds because I "forgot" to eat. Good sex is better than good food, but mediocre sex is not better than good food. I guess that's what it comes down to with me. In my life, really great sex (with one partner) has never lasted more than three months. Sad, but true. Then, it's back to good food, and that, to me, means fattening food. Yeah, I know about all the delicious non-fat foods, and I love fresh fruits and salad, but the fattening foods have to be in there too for me to be really happy (as happy as I am when I'm having really good sex).
I no longer want to be a stick figure. I used to. I admit it's still a little hard for me to fully accept my big belly and big butt. I've never been quite this big, and I'm not sure quite how to deal with my new body. It's very unconventional, unpopular and socially incorrect. Not respectable, especially in tight pants. I think I am spending too much time in Caucasian Hells.
I fully accept my new "WARNING! WIDE-LOAD" body. There's no turning back from what's part of one's chosen concept. A concept is always life-affirming, even if one's society disagrees. Therefore, I resolve to never be ashamed of myself or my shape and size ever again. I will love my whole big and beautiful self.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Great Travel Quotes
Good Travel Quotes
"...travel, even of a limited scope, was established as a value in my mind." ~~Rob Sangster in Traveler's Tool Kit (2008), talking about his childhood.
He who never leaves his country is full of prejudices. ~~Carlo Goldoni, Pamela Nubile (1757)
Most of us abandoned the idea of a life full of adventure and travel sometime between puberty and our first job. Our dreams die under the dark weight of responsibility. Occasionally the old urge surfaces, and we label it with names that suggest psychological aberrations: the big chill, a mid-life crisis." ~~Tim Cahill, Jaguars Ripped my Flesh (1987)
Age need not be a deterrent to travel. ~~Leffel and Sangster, Traveler's Tool Kit (2008)
Your true traveler will not feel he has had his money's worth unless he brings back a few scars. ~~Lawrence Durrell
The ability to see the bright side when times are rough may be an asset more valuable than physical conditioning. ~~John Walden, Jungle Travel and Survival (2001)
When I was very young and the rage to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure the itch... Now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do that job. Nothing has worked. In other words, I don't improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. ~~John Steinbeck
Everything is going to be different; life is never going to be the same after your passport has been stamped. ~~Graham Green, Another Mexico (1939)
To awaken in a strange town is one of the pleasant sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it. The tourist travels in his own atmosphere like a snail in his shell and stands , as it were, on his own perambulating doorstep to look at the continents of the world. But if you discard all this, and sally forth with a blank leisurely mind, there is no knowing what may happen to you. ~~Freya Stark, Baghdad Sketches (1933)
Hitching, among other virtues, forces you to converse with people you'd otherwise cross the street to avoid. ~~Tony Horwitz, One for the Road
Traveling is not just seeing the new; it's also leaving behind. Not just opening doors; also closing them behind you, never to return. But the place you have left forever is always there for you to see whenever you shut your eyes. ~~Jan Myrdal, The Silk Road (1980)
Travel intensifies the elements of a person's nature--both fine and toxic--making them stand out more starkly than they ever do in the safe, regulated environment of home. When I travel alone, I can give the whole mixed bag full rein, without monitoring myself, making compromises, negotiating, or even talking. I am somehow better able to tap my thoughts and feelings. It is as if the stage clears, the gackground music fades, and I come forward. At night I dream more vividly. ~~Susan Spano in A Woman alone (eds. Conlon, Emerick, and de Tessan, 2001)
It wasn't simply being able to skip the boring parts without explaining myself. Traveling alone, as invisible as a ghost, was also a method of self-discovery. What, in fact, did I do when no one was watching? ~~Joan Chatfield-Taylor in A Woman Alone
I felt molded by relationships and by other people's eyes and expectations and assumptions. ~~Joan Chatfield-Taylor in A Woman Alone
Emigrants to the United States, independent of the social class, are more daring, more ready to change, than those who don't emigrate. ~~Lopez Castro in True Tales from Another Mexico by Sam Quinones, 2001
Travel is the state of being homeless; we should welcome the opportunity it gives us to live nowhere. ~~Barbara Sjoholm in A Woman Alone: travel tales from around the globe (2001)
...the luxury of the unobserved life. ~~Joan Chatfield-Taylor in A Woman Alone
Yes, the world can be dangerous. We all read the papers, live in the neighborhoods. We see and hear about tragedy every day. But for me, the tragedy would be in not going out and exploring the world. Traveling to Italy alone reinforced my belief in my own ability to make my way through life. And if I hadn't been alone, I never would have been ambushed by Carnival revelers in search of a picture with a black broad abroad. ~~Dawn Comer Jefferson in A Woman Alone
She would rather be at a remove from everyday working life; she would rather be an outsider, a traveler, a halibut woman. ~~Barbara Sjoholm in A Woman Alone
But travel was about letting go, and there was no other way to experience it. I knew it was only when you let go that the best things happened. That was why I traveled, and why I found it so hard sometimes. I was about seven when i first realized that a girl, a woman, could go off by herself to see the world. ~~Barbara Sjoholm
...I mourned for women of the past, whose wildest adventures, most passionate and courageous acts had been reduced to anecdotes about "intrepid Victorian lady travelers." Intrepid: well, that was one word I refused to use, about myself or any other unfortunate soul who found herself far away from home, having to depend on strangers. ~~Barbara Sjoholm
I would see the place through my eyes and no one else's. No judgement. No guilt. Just mej. ~~Chelsea Cain
What, I thought, if I never did anything in Paris but lie around on the sofa and read trashy novels? Or sleep every day until two in the afternoon? Or hang around in a neighborhood cafe flirting with men and drinking vin rouge at eleven in the morning? See how many movies I could go to in a month? Ride around in circles on the Metro all day? Ridiculous notions, every one, but the point of my musings was: Who would know? For the first time in my life, I could be almost as crazy as I wanted, with the assurance that no one would be watching. Compared to my life at home, I would be living in a vacuum, free to turn myself in any direction, like an astronaut floating free outside the confines of the spaceship. ~~Joan Chatfield-Taylor
...My mother had never, ever coddled me--she always pushed me into deep water. ~~Marianne Ilaw in A Woman Alone
...I would rather pay my own way in this world than be saddled with someone who offers treats and luxuries if I promise to "behave," as some of my ex-boyfriends have done. ~~Marianne Ilaw
The biggest benefit of traveling alone, of course, is the luxury of being absolutely selfish. ~~Marianne Ilaw
The neighborhood was fine, and the price just right--somewhere between budget and sleaze. ~~ginny NiCarthy in A Woman Alone
It became clear to me that accepting responsibility for one's acts is a rite of passage for a woman...How much could I endure. ~~Marybeth Bond in A Woman Alone
Perhaps it was then that we began to take for granted that we were safe in our travels and that we would always travel, whether to see our family or to journey on our own. ~~Pramila Jayapal in A Woman Alone
By the way, dear friend, this is a matriarchal society, and the women not only rule the roost, they enjoy the legal, political, economic and social rights equal to men. And, it is quite common for a woman to have more than one man in her life, and children belonging to different fathers. Puritanism has no home in this paradisiacal society, anchored by women unencumbered by obstacles. ~~Wuanda M.T. Walls, writing about the Seychelles in A Woman Alone
I have always been fascinated by nomadic cultures. They have little concept of roots, home and belongings, a way of thinking so foreign to our Western cultures. I wanted to travel with them, alone, to absorb this nomadic culture to its fullest and to be humbled by the lack of Western comfort. I was curious to sample a simple life in a harsh environment. ~~Bernice Notenboom in A Woman Alone
Alone we can afford to be wholly whatever we are and to feel whatever we feel absolutely. ~~May Sarton
On the road it wearies me to go for weeks without seeing a single person I know. ~~Lisa Schnellinger in A Woman Alone
The art of dining alone is underrated. Without the need to converse with a companion, the single diner can be attentive to the fine food and surroundings and can allow her mind to wander where it will. ~~Nan Watkins in A Woman Alone
And this is when it hits me like a tsunami that, this time, I've gone too far. I should not rip through the desert on a giant camel, competing against veiled men with sharp swords who've done this drill for thousands of years.
I hate this part of me.
Why can't I be content to learn a new pesto recipe (or any recipe), power-walk on Sunday mornings and send out birthday presents on time, just like my sensible midwestern sisters? The answer is more complex than a notch in ye olde adventure belt. I have a deep-seated, almost irrational worry that I will miss out on something--an experience within my grasp that I've passed up out of fear. I'll probably never know the calm of a deathbed, but if I do, I don't want to be lying there mumbling, "damn, I shoulda entered that race." ~~Holly Morris in A Woman Alone
"You are the first woman ever to enter a camel race in its 5000-year tradition. They can't believe you actually finished," the blacksmith says.
"This girl over here says she wants to race next year," he adds, pointing to a smiling young woman of about fourteen.
Who's to say: arrogant competitive traveler inappropriately messes with status quo? Or, an interesting spark toward a cheched feminist revolution? ~~Holly Morris
What's endlessly charming about the essays in this book is the way each woman starts out with an entirely unrealistic fantasy about how paradisical each destination and her experience of it will be--even the most seasoned travelers among them.
A traveler's misguided expectations--especially a woman traveler, I think--are less about ignorance, and more about hope; a way to find the motivation to leave the comforts of home for the great unknown in the first place. These women's fantasies are shattered, one by one. But they are replaced, in every case, with that unexpected turn of events that winds up being the right thing, the healing thing, the funny thing, the retrospective reason they set out in the first place. ~~Pam Houston in the introduction to The Unsavvy Traveler: Women's Comic Tales of Catastrophe, 2001
...the travelers herein rediscover the old truism: that the most embarrassing events often eventually provide the best laughs... With wry humor and unabashed honesty, their stories convey the unbreakable spirit of the intrepid traveler. ~~from jacket of The Unsavvy Traveler
(Author writes about being with friend Junco in Tokyo and how American's assumption of the value of selfishness in the pursuit of freedom and independence is not respected in Japanese society.)~~in A Woman Alone
Some twelve million Mexicans reside year-round in the United States. Many millions more have lived and worked there or spend part of the year up north. The United States is now part of the Mexican reality and is where this other side of Mexico is often found, reinventing itself. ~~Sam Quinones' True Tales from Another Mexico, 2001
As Geraldine Brooks points out in Nine Parts of Desire, if Saudi Arabian society were divided into blacks and whites rather than women and men, there would be international trade sanctions and world-wide outrage at the appalling treatment of one half of the population by the other. As she also points out, if there were 90 million snall boys who were forced to have theri penises amputated, there might be an outcry about that as well. Clitoridectomies remain a predominantly Muslim rite. (in Tony Wheeler's Bad Lands, p. 267)
Pico Iyer: "...(on) the chance to be transnational in a happier sense: able to adapt anywhere, used to being outsiders everywhere, and forced to fashion our own rigorous sense of home. (And if nowhere is quite home, we can be optimists everywhere.) In Salon.com's Wanderlust, edited by Don George, 2000.
(The Satere Maue Indians in the Amazon) have few possessions, barely what is needed for survival. The incentive of acquisition is unknown; people fish or hunt for the day's needs, because anything more than that spoils... They cannot understand the white man's greed or his drive to get everywhere quickly. (Isabel Allende)
Wendy Belcher: Elspeth Huxley admits in Four Guineas (1954) that the "most illuminating" way to travel in Africa is by bus and bicycle but that for reasons of "haste and comfort" she traveled by car and plane.
Belcher: "(By plane is) the outsider looking down over the landscape, mostly through some protective barrier."
Rolf Potts: "...my mission is part of a greater struggle for individuality in the information age--an attempt to live outside the realm of who I'm supposed to be."
Potts: "...that very ordeal is exactly what I want to experience."
Women alone--particularly women of a certain age--arouse interest and invite protection." Edith Pearlman~~on women traveling alone
"...travel, even of a limited scope, was established as a value in my mind." ~~Rob Sangster in Traveler's Tool Kit (2008), talking about his childhood.
He who never leaves his country is full of prejudices. ~~Carlo Goldoni, Pamela Nubile (1757)
Most of us abandoned the idea of a life full of adventure and travel sometime between puberty and our first job. Our dreams die under the dark weight of responsibility. Occasionally the old urge surfaces, and we label it with names that suggest psychological aberrations: the big chill, a mid-life crisis." ~~Tim Cahill, Jaguars Ripped my Flesh (1987)
Age need not be a deterrent to travel. ~~Leffel and Sangster, Traveler's Tool Kit (2008)
Your true traveler will not feel he has had his money's worth unless he brings back a few scars. ~~Lawrence Durrell
The ability to see the bright side when times are rough may be an asset more valuable than physical conditioning. ~~John Walden, Jungle Travel and Survival (2001)
When I was very young and the rage to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure the itch... Now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do that job. Nothing has worked. In other words, I don't improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. ~~John Steinbeck
Everything is going to be different; life is never going to be the same after your passport has been stamped. ~~Graham Green, Another Mexico (1939)
To awaken in a strange town is one of the pleasant sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it. The tourist travels in his own atmosphere like a snail in his shell and stands , as it were, on his own perambulating doorstep to look at the continents of the world. But if you discard all this, and sally forth with a blank leisurely mind, there is no knowing what may happen to you. ~~Freya Stark, Baghdad Sketches (1933)
Hitching, among other virtues, forces you to converse with people you'd otherwise cross the street to avoid. ~~Tony Horwitz, One for the Road
Traveling is not just seeing the new; it's also leaving behind. Not just opening doors; also closing them behind you, never to return. But the place you have left forever is always there for you to see whenever you shut your eyes. ~~Jan Myrdal, The Silk Road (1980)
Travel intensifies the elements of a person's nature--both fine and toxic--making them stand out more starkly than they ever do in the safe, regulated environment of home. When I travel alone, I can give the whole mixed bag full rein, without monitoring myself, making compromises, negotiating, or even talking. I am somehow better able to tap my thoughts and feelings. It is as if the stage clears, the gackground music fades, and I come forward. At night I dream more vividly. ~~Susan Spano in A Woman alone (eds. Conlon, Emerick, and de Tessan, 2001)
It wasn't simply being able to skip the boring parts without explaining myself. Traveling alone, as invisible as a ghost, was also a method of self-discovery. What, in fact, did I do when no one was watching? ~~Joan Chatfield-Taylor in A Woman Alone
I felt molded by relationships and by other people's eyes and expectations and assumptions. ~~Joan Chatfield-Taylor in A Woman Alone
Emigrants to the United States, independent of the social class, are more daring, more ready to change, than those who don't emigrate. ~~Lopez Castro in True Tales from Another Mexico by Sam Quinones, 2001
Travel is the state of being homeless; we should welcome the opportunity it gives us to live nowhere. ~~Barbara Sjoholm in A Woman Alone: travel tales from around the globe (2001)
...the luxury of the unobserved life. ~~Joan Chatfield-Taylor in A Woman Alone
Yes, the world can be dangerous. We all read the papers, live in the neighborhoods. We see and hear about tragedy every day. But for me, the tragedy would be in not going out and exploring the world. Traveling to Italy alone reinforced my belief in my own ability to make my way through life. And if I hadn't been alone, I never would have been ambushed by Carnival revelers in search of a picture with a black broad abroad. ~~Dawn Comer Jefferson in A Woman Alone
She would rather be at a remove from everyday working life; she would rather be an outsider, a traveler, a halibut woman. ~~Barbara Sjoholm in A Woman Alone
But travel was about letting go, and there was no other way to experience it. I knew it was only when you let go that the best things happened. That was why I traveled, and why I found it so hard sometimes. I was about seven when i first realized that a girl, a woman, could go off by herself to see the world. ~~Barbara Sjoholm
...I mourned for women of the past, whose wildest adventures, most passionate and courageous acts had been reduced to anecdotes about "intrepid Victorian lady travelers." Intrepid: well, that was one word I refused to use, about myself or any other unfortunate soul who found herself far away from home, having to depend on strangers. ~~Barbara Sjoholm
I would see the place through my eyes and no one else's. No judgement. No guilt. Just mej. ~~Chelsea Cain
What, I thought, if I never did anything in Paris but lie around on the sofa and read trashy novels? Or sleep every day until two in the afternoon? Or hang around in a neighborhood cafe flirting with men and drinking vin rouge at eleven in the morning? See how many movies I could go to in a month? Ride around in circles on the Metro all day? Ridiculous notions, every one, but the point of my musings was: Who would know? For the first time in my life, I could be almost as crazy as I wanted, with the assurance that no one would be watching. Compared to my life at home, I would be living in a vacuum, free to turn myself in any direction, like an astronaut floating free outside the confines of the spaceship. ~~Joan Chatfield-Taylor
...My mother had never, ever coddled me--she always pushed me into deep water. ~~Marianne Ilaw in A Woman Alone
...I would rather pay my own way in this world than be saddled with someone who offers treats and luxuries if I promise to "behave," as some of my ex-boyfriends have done. ~~Marianne Ilaw
The biggest benefit of traveling alone, of course, is the luxury of being absolutely selfish. ~~Marianne Ilaw
The neighborhood was fine, and the price just right--somewhere between budget and sleaze. ~~ginny NiCarthy in A Woman Alone
It became clear to me that accepting responsibility for one's acts is a rite of passage for a woman...How much could I endure. ~~Marybeth Bond in A Woman Alone
Perhaps it was then that we began to take for granted that we were safe in our travels and that we would always travel, whether to see our family or to journey on our own. ~~Pramila Jayapal in A Woman Alone
By the way, dear friend, this is a matriarchal society, and the women not only rule the roost, they enjoy the legal, political, economic and social rights equal to men. And, it is quite common for a woman to have more than one man in her life, and children belonging to different fathers. Puritanism has no home in this paradisiacal society, anchored by women unencumbered by obstacles. ~~Wuanda M.T. Walls, writing about the Seychelles in A Woman Alone
I have always been fascinated by nomadic cultures. They have little concept of roots, home and belongings, a way of thinking so foreign to our Western cultures. I wanted to travel with them, alone, to absorb this nomadic culture to its fullest and to be humbled by the lack of Western comfort. I was curious to sample a simple life in a harsh environment. ~~Bernice Notenboom in A Woman Alone
Alone we can afford to be wholly whatever we are and to feel whatever we feel absolutely. ~~May Sarton
On the road it wearies me to go for weeks without seeing a single person I know. ~~Lisa Schnellinger in A Woman Alone
The art of dining alone is underrated. Without the need to converse with a companion, the single diner can be attentive to the fine food and surroundings and can allow her mind to wander where it will. ~~Nan Watkins in A Woman Alone
And this is when it hits me like a tsunami that, this time, I've gone too far. I should not rip through the desert on a giant camel, competing against veiled men with sharp swords who've done this drill for thousands of years.
I hate this part of me.
Why can't I be content to learn a new pesto recipe (or any recipe), power-walk on Sunday mornings and send out birthday presents on time, just like my sensible midwestern sisters? The answer is more complex than a notch in ye olde adventure belt. I have a deep-seated, almost irrational worry that I will miss out on something--an experience within my grasp that I've passed up out of fear. I'll probably never know the calm of a deathbed, but if I do, I don't want to be lying there mumbling, "damn, I shoulda entered that race." ~~Holly Morris in A Woman Alone
"You are the first woman ever to enter a camel race in its 5000-year tradition. They can't believe you actually finished," the blacksmith says.
"This girl over here says she wants to race next year," he adds, pointing to a smiling young woman of about fourteen.
Who's to say: arrogant competitive traveler inappropriately messes with status quo? Or, an interesting spark toward a cheched feminist revolution? ~~Holly Morris
What's endlessly charming about the essays in this book is the way each woman starts out with an entirely unrealistic fantasy about how paradisical each destination and her experience of it will be--even the most seasoned travelers among them.
A traveler's misguided expectations--especially a woman traveler, I think--are less about ignorance, and more about hope; a way to find the motivation to leave the comforts of home for the great unknown in the first place. These women's fantasies are shattered, one by one. But they are replaced, in every case, with that unexpected turn of events that winds up being the right thing, the healing thing, the funny thing, the retrospective reason they set out in the first place. ~~Pam Houston in the introduction to The Unsavvy Traveler: Women's Comic Tales of Catastrophe, 2001
...the travelers herein rediscover the old truism: that the most embarrassing events often eventually provide the best laughs... With wry humor and unabashed honesty, their stories convey the unbreakable spirit of the intrepid traveler. ~~from jacket of The Unsavvy Traveler
(Author writes about being with friend Junco in Tokyo and how American's assumption of the value of selfishness in the pursuit of freedom and independence is not respected in Japanese society.)~~in A Woman Alone
Some twelve million Mexicans reside year-round in the United States. Many millions more have lived and worked there or spend part of the year up north. The United States is now part of the Mexican reality and is where this other side of Mexico is often found, reinventing itself. ~~Sam Quinones' True Tales from Another Mexico, 2001
As Geraldine Brooks points out in Nine Parts of Desire, if Saudi Arabian society were divided into blacks and whites rather than women and men, there would be international trade sanctions and world-wide outrage at the appalling treatment of one half of the population by the other. As she also points out, if there were 90 million snall boys who were forced to have theri penises amputated, there might be an outcry about that as well. Clitoridectomies remain a predominantly Muslim rite. (in Tony Wheeler's Bad Lands, p. 267)
Pico Iyer: "...(on) the chance to be transnational in a happier sense: able to adapt anywhere, used to being outsiders everywhere, and forced to fashion our own rigorous sense of home. (And if nowhere is quite home, we can be optimists everywhere.) In Salon.com's Wanderlust, edited by Don George, 2000.
(The Satere Maue Indians in the Amazon) have few possessions, barely what is needed for survival. The incentive of acquisition is unknown; people fish or hunt for the day's needs, because anything more than that spoils... They cannot understand the white man's greed or his drive to get everywhere quickly. (Isabel Allende)
Wendy Belcher: Elspeth Huxley admits in Four Guineas (1954) that the "most illuminating" way to travel in Africa is by bus and bicycle but that for reasons of "haste and comfort" she traveled by car and plane.
Belcher: "(By plane is) the outsider looking down over the landscape, mostly through some protective barrier."
Rolf Potts: "...my mission is part of a greater struggle for individuality in the information age--an attempt to live outside the realm of who I'm supposed to be."
Potts: "...that very ordeal is exactly what I want to experience."
Women alone--particularly women of a certain age--arouse interest and invite protection." Edith Pearlman~~on women traveling alone
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