Nomadland (2020)

Charlene Swankie: Swankie

Photos 

Quotes 

• Swankie : I'm gonna be 75 this year. I think I've lived a pretty good life. I've seen some really neat things kayaking all of those places. And... You know, like a moose in the wild. A moose family on the river in Idaho and big white pelicans landed just six feet over my kayak on a lake in Colorado. Or... Come around a bin, was a cliff and find hundreds and hundreds of swallow nests on the wall of the cliff. And the swallows flying all around and reflecting in the water. So it looks like I'm flying with the swallows and they're under me, and over me, and all around me. And little babies are hatching out, and eggshells are falling out of the nest, landing on the water and floating on the water. These little white shells. That was like, it's just so awesome. I felt like I've done enough. My life was complete. If I died right then, at that moment, would be perfectly fine.

• Fern : I've been thinking a lot about my husband, Bo. When it got really bad at the end, they had him in the hospital on morphine drippin'. I was sitting there at night in the hospital. And... I'd wanna put my thumb down on that morphine drip just a little bit longer. So I could let him go. Maybe I should've tried harder. So he could've gone sooner without all that pain.

  Swankie : Maybe he wouldn't have wanted that. Maybe he was trying to stay with you as long as he could. I'm sure you took good care of him, Fern.

  Fern : I did.

• Fern : I blew my tire.

  Swankie : Well, go change it.

  Fern : I don't have a spare.

  Swankie : You don't have a spare? You're out in the boondocks and you don't have a spare? You can die out here. You're out in the wilderness, far away from anybody. You can die out here. Don't you understand that? You have to take it seriously. You have to have a way to get help. You have to be able to change your own tire.