I watched the film Nomadland for the second time this week. I saw it the day it was released because I was so looking forward to it that I couldn’t wait. I loved it. It seemed to me that it was a triumph. Widowed woman against the system, corporate greed, societal prejudices. Woman wins. The woman portrayed by Frances McDormand was my muse. I looked up to her as having been determined against the odds to make a life on the road that was unique and fulfilling.
All my friends and a few clients asked “Have you seen Nomandland yet?” Of COURSE I had! Then they’d proceed to say “Wasn’t it so sad?” and they’d describe a scene that they thought was particularly gloomy. I started to think “Did we just see the same film?” I went back and watched it again. Upon closer scrutiny, I did see some things that others would see as sad, that I consider to be just my transition from the world of consensus to the world of non-ordinary reality. Yup. Sometimes you will sleep in a parking lot. Some nights I limit my use of electrical appliances so as not to deplete my lithium batteries that captured the sun’s energy during the day. And sometimes I shit in a bucket. These are things that make me much more aware from minute to minute that I’m alive and living on my own terms. To me, there is nothing sad and certainly nothing to be ashamed of in choosing to pare down all the entrapments of the modern life to just the few basic necessities one needs to live comfortably. When I saw Fern finding ingenious ways to make her tiny home on wheels more accommodating, I almost felt like I was cheating to have bought an old, 1998 Roadtrek, complete with stove, sink, microwave, toilet, shower and even a small TV. I’ve added solar power and so now can live quite comfortably off grid. I have friends who have seen my setup and marveled at how I could possibly live on so little; I look at some of the people in “Nomadland” and feel just a tad guilty that I have so MUCH!
I discussed this with my friend Ginny. Her response was:
“To me it was a very real, raw depiction of life – we get old, we lose things, people, things turn out differently than we thought they would. But in the midst of all this, if you allow yourself to wander, you bump into incredible beauty and splendor – in nature, in sweet, tender moments with other people or yourself. Every day is new – to be imagined and designed by you – sometimes formed around elements you didn’t plan for .
Nomadland to me portrayed the wholeness of life – from grief to joy, from loneliness to connection, from ugly to beauty. And in the very middle of it is you, with your relationship with yourself. Which is much more apparent without all the chaos of the culture, living the simplest life possible.”
Beautifully put, Ginny. I couldn’t agree more.