Freewheeling

Tuesday, February 23, 2021 (27 days until the First Day of Spring)

I watched the movie and am reading the book, each a different experience, and I’ll recommend both. The movie is a tour de force for the talented actress Francis McDormand. There’s also plenty of reason to admire its director, Chloé Zhao. The book, written by Jessica Bruder, began as a journalistic piece, focusing on adults who live as transients and its focus is wider than the movie.

The movie follows a unique, interesting individual whom viewers admire, but the story doesn’t reveal much of why she’s motivated to live separately and independently. The book’s author is a professional journalist who focuses on America’s subculture and its dark economy. Nomandland, the book, grew from Bruder’s initial plan to glimpse those living as transients. That experience deepened her interest in the wheeled culture and its participants and she began to explore it deeply.

I’ve been interested in the wheeled culture since some of my co-workers at Costco have taken off during winter months for a mobile life. Other co-workers sold their homes and decided on a mobile life. Some have returned permanently to this area, saying they didn’t enjoy being completely mobile and that the lifestyle became too expensive. Others are completely into the culture, saying they look forward to meeting up with like-minded others at common collection points.

The current economy also encourages a transient life style. These days, those owning homes in attractive areas can sell high, but although armed with cash can’t afford to buy another home in the same or a nearby area. One option is to sell one’s home, purchase a live-in vehicle and go on the road, hoping for an eventual economic readjustment that enables returning to home ownership.

Neither work addresses the self-isolating culture caused by Covid-19. The virus is another justification, at least in the short term, for choosing a transient life style.

Over the last four years nearly everyone worldwide has tuned in to culture’s social and economic differences. Both works, entitled “Nomandland”, add value by broadening insight and understanding as to why and how individuals choose paths that differ from known norms.

Dear Friends: Redefining a definition of “freewheeling” as “no norms”, for culture has cast it to a new norm. Diana