Everything is constantly born and dies in art as in life.
“See you down The road“.
Life doesn’t end when we break a job, a career, a love. When we lose a partner. A whole life made up of habits and staples.
Gone, lost in memories.
Under track in an emotional and deep film, resonates this wish: see you along the way.
There is the woman who loses her husband, her job and even her city, there is the father who loses his son, there is the father who has never loved his son and who runs away. There is the humanity that recognizes its own and other people’s mistakes but continues to search for the beauty of life.
And who leaves everything and begins a nomadic life.
There are multiple ruptures that stop any previous life.
They can come suddenly or with a slow settling.
Yet life is not just that, it is not an end. Nor is it a definite beginning, a memorable date.
Life flows circularly, along the way.
Sharing experiences, finding a way to help others, striving to find the why of getting up in the morning despite the heaviness of life.
Remembering those who are gone and the life that no longer exists is a way to not forget others.
Who we have loved, who have come into our lives.
Nothing is erased, nothing is interrupted.
If we see each other along the way, the thin thread that binds us all, keeps us alive.
And those who no longer exist among us remain alive.
There’s a term that really bugs me these days, and it’s “resilience“.
Because it doesn’t give us the space to discourage ourselves up, to feel defeated.
Because it gives no respite to our journey.
We should have plenty of space and time to process the experiences of our lives.
To sit looking out at the desert without a watch, phone, or obligations. And wait for the inner storm to pass.
Because without giving ourselves time to process the experiences, we will never be able to leap forward.
There never seems to be time for that.
All on track, ready to resume life, ready to joyfully rebuild the same hellish machine that was pre-covid life.
Why do I say infernal?
Because we didn’t realize it but we were running into a wall at full speed.
Constant travel, spending, pursuit of money, success, affirmation. The career, the curriculum, the community, the streaming, the festivals, the parties, the friends (many, all close friends).
Present everywhere at social events, the first to write about the latest book, the latest film, the latest play.
Back in 2015, I was already beginning to choke.
When my father died on a full moon night to the swinging of birch trees outside the hospital window, after the initial shock, every single piece of certainty crumbled.
Above all, a time of infinite childhood was extinguished with a click.
I spent a few years reconnecting my mind to the fact that it had happened and there was no going back.
Instead, the rest of society asks you to file and move on, gives you specific times to grieve, and deems you heroic and brave if you put it in the drawer as soon as possible.
Courage, character, the infamous resilience.
Everything tells you that life goes on and that you need to come back as before, better than before.
But if you lose a few pieces that support your skeleton, how can you know when the new crutches will work? More importantly they will be new crutches and therefore a new gait, you have to start walking again.
Something ends, life goes on, but you are not what you were before and still not something new and stable.
The limbo of growth appears and you go through it.
In how long you don’t know and you don’t even know what will be next.
I understood that I was losing the sense of it all, I seemed to be living a life on the surface and never enjoying anything.
Sudden happiness and then the terrible question that assailed me at night: “what’s the point of it all?”.
It was a strictly personal feeling, meanwhile the world was running.
Then a virus and fragmented news….
And then the wave.
Everything stopped, only the virus and death ran.
And the feeling of falling into another sense of life that wasn’t what it used to be, became collective.
After 14 months, I believe that like me there are many Fren of Nomadland, even in a metaphorical sense.
This leaving behind a life lived, loved, endured, but ended.
And in front of all the space and time to figure out how to live again.
And as in the film, the search for kindness, mutual aid, silence, ecology of the soul.
And above all, choosing how to live.
For me, it was very important to integrate myself into the lives of others, to feel part of a social eco-system made up of rituals and habits.
Not now.
I no longer understand the meaning of many things and situations and above all I need to fully understand what I like and what I don’t like.
I’m looking for these people.
Who may be radically opposed to me, but who are doing the same research.
During this long journey made up of different cities, new people, jobs that have changed and ended, I have taken on different times that often diverged from those of others.
The trade-off was losing friends who no longer understood me and finding myself well everywhere and nowhere.
But it was an external search, which was about me in relation to others.
In these 14 months the focus has shifted to me, as I believe to yourself, as well as to my relationship with others.
And perhaps individual work will be more important for the purposes of collective work.
As for me, I try every day to find that chair on the rock and watch the desert at sunset in silence.
Listening to one’s own time is not an easy exercise, because no one has taught us to respect personal time and space.
I would love for you to find that same inner place and share the feelings with me.
I don’t know what we have in front of us, I would love to have the insight of the century.
But I hope we’ll always find the desire for a handful of sand in our hands to see it flow through our fingers.
And thank you for reading me this far, I’ve set up a chair next to mine and I’m sure we’ll see one of the most beautiful sunsets or sunrise of our lives together, waiting for the stars to illuminate our silence in the night.
Together.
