Directed by Chloé Zhao, Nomadland (2021), tells of a life on the road. One where home is less the makeup of what you have but the passage in knowing what is of matter, as you on in being. Presenting there is a home to be had in this very existence alone, a heart to a life you had always felt it could be. Famished not by stress or strain, but filled by the stillness in being. Through all: seeing, exploring, knowing, and feeling.
This post is about the movie Nomadland. Starring Frances McDormand, Charlene Swankie, and David Strathairn.
See You Down The Down
A Reflection On Journeys and Seeing Again
What have you to say of the open road? One that far rides past where you’ve been? It’s a journey beyond what you have known, a consequence of where you long to be. There is so much to see, people you are to know. For certain you’ll be moving, though very much you’re at home. It’s the call to be still, and to know of this life as much as you’ve remembered of it. With no final goodbye, I write to the few:
Dedicated to the ones who depart. See you down the road.
Contains mature themes and depictions that may be unsuitable for some viewers. Engage with discernment — viewer discretion advised.
You Take Care of Yourself
“No, I’m not homeless. I’m just without a home. I’m houseless”
~ Fern
What is it that drives you to roads far away? Interesting we hold on to what we no longer need, to make lighter a living we wish not to reprieve. Choices are made and are meant to be lived with, and your choice in living is not any different. How odd can this be for those who do not see, in the telling of your truth they choose no to be believe. For you it’s more than living, it’s a need to love, a work into itself that feels more than right. And it’s now, you’re okay, right where you are.
So many are thrown right to the pasture, after steadily tending the land with none that comes after. With the futility of years on steady demand, and what’s worth its giving for years on end? Wanting for answers in the world, for what yearns within. To be faced with fate, all is to die. Beauty, connection, to venture this Earth, a freedom going to what eventually returns to dirt. To seek and to find, to see and try, to laugh and to dance, to be merry through night.
We all need a way to find and get help, a provision I plead you take seriously. Find your path to be more than expected, endings to which you have known. Pain grows on to the end of this life, enough to make you look back and know you lived a good one. Pockets of awe reveal to a few sum, that truly we can be here to know something neat. We can go sooner, if evil wills, though why not stay as long as you can be?
That One’s On Me
“You maybe seemed weird but it was just because you were braver, and more honest than any body else”
~ Dolly
So much of life asks: why not stop and see what stays? To make a living for that which you must also give. To stray from the collective long enough to see what remains. It need not be a goodbye, if only there were a reason; if only a glimmer of hope were given, even if from just one person. There are many good places you can go, and many worse places too. It is in the stillness of seeing. Yes, you can go on and live for what there is to have, but how good can it be to be alone—receiving all that is offered, yet sharing none of what is meant to be shared?
It is all in who you are—who you have always been—and that never truly leaves you. Those who love you see it, and they grieve as you flee, too. There is a hollow in your leaving that never quite fills, and you know that rests on you. Bravery is virtue, and so it can be, for the one that gets to choose.
What’s Remembered Lives
“o long as men can breathe and eyes can see. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”
~ Fern
Remember what was; see that which tips the trees. Open roads go on, and the sun is there to meet the sea. Nature stays longer, and so can we, to be around the ones we like to be around. Merry and filling, to be glad and to be kind — what tends the soul to slip off into the night? Keep to what you have seen, the welcome of a new home. Walking the cliffs, in the clashing of waves, the wind blows and there she goes. To be stretched and felt, to return to the same places alone again; to be seen down the road, to the fire where the rock is thrown.
To live and move on, though you would rather stay put; to lose not what you had, to remember what was good. What is remembered lives, but too much remembrance gives. To reprieve from life, it is the soul that is shattered. To live on for such others — that is all that matters. Quietly look back to what was meant for you. Now the open road brings the same life anew.
See you down the road.
To The Believer
What never ceases to amaze, beholden the setter.
The awe of the canvas, mountains to rivers.
Thou subtly harbors the field of dreams.
For the one who comprehends not that which is beseeched.
To the forests renown, include His creation.
Unearthed to knowing the veil too torn.
Gravel quick rumbles and rest not this winter day.
And the mind goes on to rests not to grave
Do not all seek the knowing of the seeds of belief?
The nature of image ensembles do sing.
Possessions wage fair though man help’st not.
Death is not the end so in the helper dear God.
Credit: Script and select images used in this post are from Nomadland (© Searchlight Pictures). Included for reflective commentary and thematic analysis.
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