My frayed hem suf­fered from the damp­ness and dirt of hitch­hik­ing through six Ore­gon coun­ties. I could feel the bricks through my ragged, blood-stained flats. I squinted as I looked up, flick­ing the rain away with my eye­lids. The statue’s patina face, nei­ther for­giv­ing nor wel­com­ing, glanced away, per­ma­nently fixed on the side­walk across the street. She was un­con­cerned with my past, stoic like all the faces pass­ing me on the street. Yet, her ex­tended arm reached down to­ward mine, reach­ing for me at a time of un­ham­pered need. I crum­pled under the weight of this ges­ture. I slumped against the near­est pole, not ready to break eye con­tact with the crouch­ing statue above. I placed my sign in front of my crossed legs. My bright red fin­ger­nails still had dirt caked un­der­neath.

A passerby dropped me a dol­lar. 

I ar­rived four months ago to a farm in a squar­ish West­ern Amer­i­can state. In ret­ro­spect, I sup­pose I was care­less. I scanned anx­iously through the email, an­tic­i­pat­ing a ranch in Col­orado or per­haps a hip­pie com­mune in Ver­mont. When I read the near­est town’s name, I googled it and had to zoom out sev­eral times to find the dot’s clos­est brother. Though ter­ri­fied and dis­ap­pointed, I told my­self to ac­cept the ad­ven­ture. Eighteen, I am told, is the age to coast the waves of un­cer­tainty. I chose to sur­ren­der and ac­cept my tenure.

I sat for more than two hours on a firm seat of vac­uum-sealed skirts and work clothes fill­ing the in­ter­stices be­tween a vast shoe col­lec­tion. The six hours of fly­ing left me slumped with my head rest­ing on my knees. I opened my eyes to worn shoes and frayed jeans stand­ing in front of me. A hag­gard cou­ple of an un­cer­tain age stood be­fore me.

“Wel­come, sis­ter,” said the woman as she grasped a hold of my hand. The creases con­nect­ing her mouth and nos­trils were deep, em­boss­ing her small mouth in a frown. Her hair was thick, griz­zled, and grey­ing from a light brown. The man looked about the same age, give or take a decade. His hand nearly crushed mine when he shook it. His eyes were nearly black, like his un­kept hair. I dis­tinctly re­mem­ber shiv­er­ing after he let go.

We ex­changed names, and they led me to their rusted truck. He ter­mi­nated my small talk as he tossed my lug­gage in the truck bed and said, “Soon you’ll re­al­ize you don’t need any of this.” I felt his forth­right cold­ness but knew he didn’t mean any harm. He was prob­a­bly right, but I hadn’t re­ally known what I was pack­ing for.

The drive lasted half a day, and I spoke rapidly about my flight as the man shifted the rat­tling gear stick. I rarely got a re­sponse or smile. They made me feel stu­pid for ask­ing ques­tions, meet­ing each ques­tion with a lengthy pause. “Soon you will see, sis­ter,” they kept say­ing, as if it were some monas­tic chant. We wound through moss cov­ered forests under a sky of an eter­nal gray. A del­i­cate spray formed un­bro­ken rivulets down the win­dow like a road map through Ap­palachia. After the first two hours, I let the wipers do the talk­ing. I looked down at my hands, not­ing that I had un­know­ingly been chip­ping away at my nail pol­ish.

The rain even­tu­ally ceased and with it ended the un­bro­ken chain of green. The brown be­fore me hardly de­scribed the North­west I had ex­pected. My view traded a leafy shel­ter to a dirty vast­ness I hadn’t known to exist. A hand­ful of pines dot­ted the desert, and a smell I couldn’t quite place flooded the car.

“The sage is how we know we’re al­most home,” the woman said. She in­haled deeply. She seemed slightly more at ease.

An hour later, we rum­bled down the final gravel road of the day. I spot­ted a house a half mile be­fore we ar­rived. The im­mense empti­ness of the val­ley made the des­ti­na­tion cer­tain. We ap­proached, and I had hardly taken a breath in ten min­utes. Some­thing deep in my chest kept me from ex­hal­ing. I had not seen an­other car, as­phalt, or struc­ture in an hour. No pow­er­lines, ei­ther. If the car were to ever break down, it would be a full day’s walk just to reach an as­phalt road.​Probably an­other day’s walk to reach a town.

The house was prim­i­tive. Built on scrap­wood, the struc­ture was hardly sound. The place felt time­less, as if it had been here for­ever and would con­tinue to pass each hour until earth breathed its last. My hosts’ room was lofted above mine, and I heard each of their steps creak above me. When I laid down my lug­gage, a cloud of dust ex­haled from below it. There was no elec­tric­ity and no run­ning water. The toi­let was forty feet from the en­trance, and I could feel the draft in most areas of the ground floor. In one cor­ner of the room, I could see straight into the fields. The house, it seemed, felt colder than out­side. The sun was set­ting, so I lit the can­dle next to my bed. I laid on my bed and watched the flick­er­ing on the slats above.

My first month on the farm was mis­ery. Each morn­ing I cracked through the in­suf­fi­cient com­forter be­fore the sun had time to de­frost. I’d fix my­self some tea on the propane stove be­fore cross­ing the frosted yard to feed the chick­ens. By break­fast, I’d have com­pleted two hours of work. With spring only a month away the to-do list was bot­tom­less. I never com­plained be­cause both my hosts woke ear­lier and worked later than I. They had an in­ex­haustible well of en­ergy here, though they never struck me as par­tic­u­larly happy.

We would have con­ver­sa­tions at din­ner that re­flected the food it­self: sparse and un­mem­o­rable. We would chat about the weather every night. I learned from them the sub­tleties of grey­ness that would make for a shower or warmer tem­per­a­tures. Then we’d briefly dis­cuss the tasks for the fol­low­ing day be­fore one of the hosts would clear the table. I would take this as a ges­ture for me to re­tire to my room to gaze at the flick­er­ing ceil­ing, wrapped in all my blan­kets and jack­ets I owned.

Dur­ing the day, I was al­ways oc­cu­pied, so I never thought. I just ex­e­cuted my tasks as asked. But at night, star­ing at the ceil­ing, I’d let my mind drift. I’d think about how awk­ward it would feel to make my hosts drive me to the near­est sta­tion. One night, I even con­sid­ered run­ning away. I es­ti­mated that it would take five hours to jog to the near­est paved road. I even half­heart­edly looked for my ten­nis shoes, only to find that I had ap­par­ently for­got­ten to pack them. I was sur­rounded by an un­pop­u­lated desert, to leave would be to risk my life. I blew my can­dle out, watched the wick turn to black and then let the world fade to black.

After the first month, my hosts trusted me enough to let me join them to the gro­cery store. Twice a week, we’d drive an hour with the hosts to the clos­est town. Every once in a while I’d learn a bit more of their past lives. They weren’t raised on a farm, but came here out of dis­dain for the urban lifestyles that af­flict so many Amer­i­cans. They viewed their pasts as a long mis­take filled with un­nec­es­sary things: clothes, cell phones, the In­ter­net, and dif­fi­cult jobs. They were elu­sive when I’d pry, so I learned to let the sto­ries come to me. Our trip would dic­tate the end of the con­ver­sa­tion.

While my hosts shopped, I’d checked out books from the li­brary, make a call at the gen­eral store, and drop let­ters at the post of­fice. I’d chat with who­ever I could to fill my unmet so­cial quota be­fore load­ing the gro­ceries in the car and dri­ving an hour back to the house.

“Did you re­mem­ber can­dles?” the woman asked her part­ner.

“Yes, of course,” he replied. “Al­ways need to re­mem­ber can­dles.” Then he looked at her and al­most cracked a smile. In rel­a­tive terms, it felt af­fec­tion­ate, warm even. Under their somber de­meanors, I was start­ing to de­tect the sub­tleties that made their re­la­tion­ship make more sense.

The gray fell into darker shades as the sun set each night. I’d then light a can­dle to con­tinue read­ing. Read­ing by can­dle­light be­came a rit­ual for me. I didn’t have the in­ter­net or a phone or any mech­a­nized ma­chin­ery in my room. Rel­a­tive to the rest of the ob­jects in my room, the flame stuck me as a mod­ern com­fort. A flame is a men­ace though, even when con­fined to a wick. It length­ens and whips around with changes in pres­sure only it can de­tect; it bends hor­i­zon­tally when a cur­tain draws near; pa­pers creep close as the flame short­ens from as­phyx­i­a­tion on the wick’s last ten­drils. I was mes­mer­ized and trou­bled by its pres­ence. Mo­ments be­fore blow­ing it out each night, I would tempt it, wet­ting my fin­gers be­fore run­ning them through the flame’s peak. Or I’d un­plug a piece of my blonde hair and watch the cells writhe, blacken, and turn to a cau­ter­ized odor. When ready, I’d purse my lips and blow and watch the thin light of smoke tan­gle its way through the cen­time­ter-wide spaces be­tween the floor­boards above. And as the smoke rose, the light from the hosts’ room fell, strip­ing my room like piano keys or an old timey pris­oner’s cos­tume.

My sen­ti­ments to­ward my sit­u­a­tion began to change as my cal­louses grew thick and the days grew longer. The work be­came sec­ond na­ture, and I began to ap­pre­ci­ate the soil under my nails. I found strength in sim­plic­ity. Some­thing was trans­form­ing in­side me, and I told my host par­ents that I no longer missed the In­ter­net. I didn’t feel the need to call home any more, and I didn’t care much for what hap­pened out­side our small patch of Ore­gon.

I grew closer to my hosts, too. I started to de­tect more sub­tleties in their seem­ingly stoic out­ward bear­ing. It felt like I was re­cal­i­brat­ing my un­der­stand­ing of human emo­tion. Their fa­cial spec­trums were smaller than the av­er­age per­son, and they seemed to ex­press ex­cite­ment, stress, and frus­tra­tion with­out chang­ing their mouth, eye­brows, or tone of voice.

As I gained more rev­e­la­tions about their per­son­al­ity, I de­vel­oped a bit more of an un­der­stand­ing of their world­view as well. They had dis­tilled a lot of thought into their brief sen­tences and elim­i­nated all those phrases we use to fill the air. They spoke with in­ten­tion and left me think­ing long after the con­ver­sa­tion had wrapped up. I, too, started to think more con­sciously about my word choice. I bab­bled less.

I felt my­self merg­ing into their lifestyle, and, as I started to ad­just, they found in me an ally with whom they could share their world­view. With greater fre­quency, they re­ferred to their lives as jour­nal­ists in Chicago.  They called it their “dis­tracted life.”

“We’d wake up sev­eral times a night need­ing to reply to Tweets and e-mails,” the woman said. “I don’t think I ever slept more than three hours at a time.”

“Work is an ob­ses­sion for Amer­i­cans. We want every­one to know how hard we work. We at­tach our iden­tity to our ca­reer,” the man added. “One day I lifted my head from my phone and asked my­self, ‘Why?’ In that mo­ment I sev­ered my ca­reer from my iden­tity.”

I ini­tially felt de­fen­sive when the hosts at­tacked the lifestyle I, too, op­er­ated in just a few months before.​The feel­ing that I needed to de­fend my up­bring­ing eroded over time, how­ever. I started to lis­ten to them, learn from their ex­pe­ri­ence. Why do need to wash our hair with chem­i­cals? Why do we need for our house to smell like de­ter­gent to feel clean? On our next trip to town, I brought my bot­tle of sham­poo, my makeup bag, and my scented lo­tion. I dumped them in a trash­can out­side the li­brary.

Mid­way through my third month, the hosts in­formed me that they would be re­triev­ing an­other vol­un­teer from the air­port. With­out room in the truck, I of­fered to stay be­hind and rel­ish the final hours of hav­ing the room to my­self. They re­turned that evening with a ter­ri­fied look­ing vol­un­teer. I rec­og­nized the fear in her face but saw my­self as a foil. The other vol­un­teer hadn’t built up my re­silience. Soon she would see that she didn’t need the in­ter­net or makeup or calls home. She would learn to love the life hu­mans were in­tended to live.

Only two days into her stay, she asked the hosts to take her back to the air­port. Her close mind­ed­ness shocked me in light of all the hosts had al­ready done for her. They re­fused, say­ing they wouldn’t make a trip to town just for her. The vol­un­teer com­plained about them to me, and I quickly came to my hosts’ de­fense. I told the vol­un­teer that they are good peo­ple with lim­ited time and gas money. She could wait until Tues­day and catch a bus from town.

When Tues­day ar­rived, I heard my host par­ents sneak out of the house and roll out the dri­ve­way. The vol­un­teer, who slept a less than ten feet from me, woke up and ran after them, scream­ing for them to stop. She came back cry­ing. She re­fused to help me with the labor while the hosts were gone.

In­stead of prepar­ing lunch, she pre­pared con­spir­acy the­o­ries about how our hosts were forc­ing us to stay here against our wishes. She said they had stolen her ten­nis shoes so she couldn’t es­cape. Her wal­let, too. She at­tacked me, too. She said I had been in­doc­tri­nated. She didn’t un­der­stand that our hosts just wanted her to ad­just and learn to love her sur­round­ings the way I had. She didn’t see that the hosts cared about her, that the hosts just wanted what was best for her. She just didn’t seem to get it. She left cry­ing, and I fell asleep that night not feel­ing any pity for her.

“Hey!,” she whis­pered. I woke up to her crouched over with me with her back­pack. Her things were packed.

“I’ve got every­thing we need. Do you want to come with me?” she said. Her face was ex­cited but ter­ri­fied.

I shook my head. The near­est town was at least a two days walk away and only a hand­ful of times had I seen an­other car on the way.

She didn’t ask twice, and in the morn­ing she was gone along with our house’s food and my wal­let. The hosts were fu­ri­ous. I de­nied hear­ing her leave. The man stormed out, started the truck and sped off. I sus­pected that he was going out to save her from her stu­pid de­ci­sion to re­turn, but he re­turned with bags of gro­ceries in­stead.

“Did you get any can­dles? We’re al­most out,” his part­ner said.

“No be­cause the store’s out, too. They won’t get an­other ship­ment for three weeks,” he replied.

Within the week, life had re­turned to nor­mal. With­out a sec­ond vol­un­teer, we strug­gled to get our work done be­fore night­fall, but I en­joyed the peace that re­sumed in the wake of the other vol­un­teer. I was down to my last can­dle, which I didn’t mind so much be­cause the sun set late enough that I could con­tinue read­ing. I would usu­ally just lay in the dark for an hour be­fore I was tired enough to fall asleep. As I stared at the floor­boards above me, I started to think about the vol­un­teer. She had been so out of place here that she chose to risk her life rather than stay. She thought we were crazy. She didn’t un­der­stand. We were the ones who were liv­ing the way hu­mans were sup­posed to live.

A month shy of my four month an­niver­sary, I had only about an inch of wick left on my last can­dle. The ship­ment, which was sup­posed to have ar­rived the day be­fore, was an­other two weeks out. I had grown rest­less in the past week, and hear­ing the news of the delay crushed me. That night I thought about the other vol­un­teer again. I had stum­bled upon her shoes at the edge of the field ear­lier that day. She had ap­par­ently ripped them up and buried them there. She must not have known she’d need them. She had stashed some of my things there, too. Among them was a bot­tle of nail pol­ish. I picked it up and put it in my pocket.

In the dark­ness, I couldn’t fig­ure out why the other vol­un­teer had de­stroyed her shoes and blamed the hosts. The thought so dis­turbed me that I groped around for the matches and lit the stump of the wick. I looked at my be­long­ings: the un­opened suit­case, my stack of li­brary books, my dirty jeans. I opened up my suit­case of city clothes and slipped on a pair of flats. I looked down at them as the flame began to flicker. I dug through my suit­case until I found other trea­sures: my spare purse, clothes with­out stains, and ear­rings. I dug into my pocket and grabbed the nail pol­ish I had found ear­lier that day. I ap­plied the red to my nails and ad­mired them in the dim­ming glow. I put on the flats, the ear­rings, and clothes. I had a dizzy­ing feel­ing from dress­ing up to match my for­mer life. The flames flick­ered some more as I ro­tated be­fore the win­dow. I looked at my re­flec­tion in the win­dow and saw some­one I rec­og­nized star­ing back at me. And as the flame breathed its last, my re­flec­tion was re­placed with a view out­side. The full moon­light had bro­ken through the clouds. I re­al­ized I hadn’t seen the full moon since ar­riv­ing.

I could still smell the smoke as I walked out of the room into the moon­light. I was cold when I crossed the lawn, and I could feel each piece of gravel through my flats. I kept walk­ing with­out think­ing about where my mo­tions were tak­ing me. I fol­lowed the road for a cou­ple of hours, wait­ing for my­self to turn around. Blis­ters formed on my feet by about the fourth hour, and I was hob­bling by the sixth. As the sun rose, I no­ticed my blood had stained the rocks I had walked on. I thought about my hosts wak­ing up and dis­cov­er­ing my ab­sence. I imag­ined the man fir­ing up the en­gine, but there’d be no rea­son to go to town as I had not stolen any­thing.

To leave a place is to leave a life. When you’re young, and maybe even when you’re old, note­wor­thy change comes with a clean break.

I heard an en­gine in the dis­tance and won­dered if he had in fact de­cided to come look­ing. As the ve­hi­cle ap­proached, I re­al­ized it was not my hosts’. I stuck out my painted thumb­nail. The ve­hi­cle slowed.