I moved from Orange County California to Orange County Indiana.
I lasted two whole weeks.
Even the people in Indiana wondered why I’d move to such a place. They wouldn’t wish it on their own worst enemies.
Feeding sheep and gardening in exchange for a cabin in the woods sounded like a dream come true to me. I imagined myself writing, stretching, and meditating on the porch in peaceful solitude.
The best creators have that moment where they get away from it all to reconnect with themselves and nature. Solitude meant freedom. I could do whatever the fuck whenever the fuck.
Indiana was known as The Crossroads of America. It’s in the middle of everything, but it’s also in the middle of nowhere. The Lost Woods were isolated from the rest of the world. It was the perfect place to disappear.
Lots of people asked me why I went from “Fancy Orange County” to “Hick Orange County.” I told them I was eager to get away from the distractions and opinions of other people. Southern California was shallow, expensive, and claustrophobic in comparison. It left me craving nature, space, and privacy. I might have overcorrected a little bit.
The closest town was a notorious hiding spot for famous criminal gangsters. True crime fans flocked to the area to tour the secret underground tunnels and passageways. The Lost River caves were entrances and exits to private bunkers. Most of the locals were ashamed of the town’s dark history, but I found it fascinating.
Most of the people in The Lost Woods were Amish or Mennonite. All the locals were excited to talk to me, they had never met someone from Hollywood before.
The small town gossip spread like wildfire. Everyone knew everything about everybody. I was the latest news or dare I say star. A younger version of me would have killed for that level of attention.
People told me I was the smartest person in town. It was a pretty low bar considering none of them had a formal education. Most of them didn’t even have teeth.
There were less than a thousand people in town, but they had over thirty five churches. People invited me to worship but I feared I might burst into flames or a thousand bats. That would’ve been sick, but I’d rather spend my time chillin outdoors with a glass of bourbon and some woodland creatures.
When I first moved into the cabin, I asked the landowners for the key. They acted like that was a high maintenance request. The husband told me that people don’t lock their doors in The Lost Woods. I had already gone through enough stalker issues, so I persuaded them to give me a key anyway.
The wife desperately wanted a new codependent best friend. She kept showing up on my porch unannounced with her kids. She regretted having children and envied my freedom. I wanted all of them to fuck off, so I could smoke and write in privacy.
They were kind, generous people, but they had no concept of hygiene or boundaries. At one point they warned me not to be gay. They probably burn queer stoners bitches at the stake out there.
The cabin had no plumbing or electricity. I got water from the local spring or farm hose. There was a compost outhouse toilet facing the woods. Overall it was a much needed grounding experience. I unplugged from technology to be present with nature. I simplified life to enjoy the views. I planted flowers, ate from the earth, and danced barefoot under the stars.
Leaning into my natural primal spirit gave me much needed relief. It felt so good to just be. No need for masking or acting out in the wilderness. Most of all it felt great to simplify and slow the fuck down.
My new lifestyle concerned my friends and family back home. They thought that living alone in the woods sounded like the plot of a horror movie.
Most of them were shocked that I would even consider visiting Indiana. My friends expected me to spend the rest of my life in LA. People kept telling me to come back to reality as if cities were more real than the natural world.
The landowners told me stories about the fairies and spirits they met outside my cabin door. They said that the mystical creatures disappeared after some trees were chopped down. The fairies taught them how to communicate and collaborate with plants.
Most people in town assumed that I was a witch. Probably because I wore all black and lived in a cabin in the woods with my black cat. Everyone hoped I could bring back the magical fairies somehow.
After spending lots of alone time in nature I started noticing interesting signs and synchronicities. All the supernatural stories started to make more sense.
Everything I previously thought no longer seemed true. Maybe I had to abandon my preconceived ideas in order to make room for a new level of consciousness. Maybe we have to lose our minds or egos in order to go through spiritual awakenings.
When my bare hands and feet touched the earth there was an inexplicable enchanted sense of magic in the air. It inspired me to look up the spiritual meanings associated with certain plants, numbers, and animals.
Beautiful red cardinals made nests surrounding the cabin. I started writing, dancing, and gardening around the same time their eggs hatched. Cardinals symbolize creativity, adaptability, and spirituality. They seemed to be more active when I was being artistic. It felt like they were my little cheerleaders encouraging me to be more creative.
Most of my friends and neighbors were deer. Since they shed and regrow their antlers, they are often associated with renewal. Deer look frightened, panicked, surprised, and confused. Their fears and anxieties are what keep them alive. Deer have the ability to move through obstacles and regenerate quickly. They seem soft and gentle despite their strong survival instincts.
Black cats are curious, independent, flexible, defensive, and magical. People associate them with rebirth and resurrection. My cat Lando has been by my side during many life changing adventures. He hissed and growled at predators to protect me from harm.
Sheep often represent community and peace. It was my responsibility to take care of them on the farm. Sometimes the sheep would get lost in the woods. One time they ran away, but I found them grazing at a Mennonite Church. They always stuck together as a herd and were easy to control with food. Holding newborn baby sheep felt more healing than drugs or therapy.
The spiritual symbolism behind most of the plants and animals encouraged me to follow my creative passions and natural intuitions. That sounds like a pretty good idea, no matter what you believe.
All the mystical theories I heard from the locals started to sound increasingly more plausible over time. The trees were my friends, so communicating and collaborating with plants sounded natural. Was I going crazy or waking up?
Years ago I heard a Native American story that spoke about the future of our planet. It said that many people would die, some would survive, and the rest would lose their minds. That time had come and I knew what group I was in.
Maybe I was losing it, but wasn’t everyone? Our world had too many fucking people. We were in the middle of a global pandemic. Normal people were weird for not being crazy. We had to learn how to adapt to survive a post apocalyptic dystopian plague!
Most Amish people hate the American government, healthcare, food, and education systems. They enjoy arts, plants, and animals. I appreciated their lifestyle choices and wanted to be more like them to a certain extent.
In the woods it was our responsibility to take care of our own waste. We composted, burnt trash, and drove the rest to the dump. Everybody out there strived to be eco-friendly and self-sufficient.
Some people were embarrassed that they had to burn their own trash. I told them that bonfires were a pretty big deal back in my hometown Huntington Beach, which inspired them to throw a campfire party.
Most people in that area avoided technology and preferred crafts or live entertainment. We sang songs, played instruments, and danced around a campfire. The locals ate roadkill and begged me to perform. They gathered around me and started chanting “Sing! Sing! Sing!” I told them I wasn’t a singer, but they didn’t care. They really wanted to hear my voice. At first it was hard to sing, but once I started I couldn’t stop.
It was refreshing to be an artist without having the pressure to be good, competitive, or impressive.
Out in nature I was able to be myself and enjoy art for the sake of being creative. It wasn’t about being good, it was about having fun. The Amish people helped me realize how much I loved and missed performing arts. They made me feel like a kid again.
Growing up I loved drawing, singing, dancing, acting, and playing dress up. I didn’t care about what other people thought. I cared about what I thought! It was all about self expression and cathartic release. My art was made for me by me. I needed to decenter the audience and recenter myself again.
Our bodies are meant to move and create. Guess I lost my creative instincts after so much heartbreak in Hollywood. Leaving LA felt like the grand finale, but it was just the intermission. I thought that was the end of my life, but it was just the beginning.
Leaving people and places behind dramatically improved my life for the better, even though it looked concerning from the outside. If you reconstruct your home or life it’s going to look like shit before it starts looking better.
The deepest healing happened when I could be my wildest true creative self without the fear of being judged. It’s crazy how much growth and potential we can find in the most unlikely places.
Doing things alone is a great way to meet like minded people.
In Orange County Indiana most people were poor, but happy. In Orange County California most people were wealthy, but miserable. They seemed happier in the woods, because they were connected to nature, instead of ignoring it or destroying it.
Hollywood obese was Indiana anorexic. People kept trying to feed me. The local produce came straight from the Amish farms. The fruits and vegetables were usually covered in dirt or bugs. Most of the neighbors hunted and ate deer regularly.
Watching animals die in the woods was shocking. I was probably the only vegetarian in town. The west coast was vegan heaven compared to the midwest. Roadkill upset me but excited the townspeople. If you ever hit a deer in Indiana, go tell some locals, they’ll be stoked to eat it for dinner.
My only source of income was from selling nudes pics online. It was hard to find the privacy to shoot and even harder to find wifi. The local market and library had horrible internet, but that was better than nothing. I tried to hide my screen from the Amish locals, because I knew they would judge or die of shock. It’s not like I had any connections or job opportunities out there. My skanky ass nude pics helped me survive.
Indiana was a great place to people watch. One day I saw some hillbillies take a canoe out onto a large lake. They got wasted and lost their paddles. The Amish people sat back and watched them drunkenly struggle to get back to land. They failed and ended up sleeping in the canoe. When I saw them a few days later they looked extremely sunburnt and dehydrated.
Another day some Amish people rode by my cabin and saw me drinking on the porch. Even though I knew that they don’t drink, I offered them some wine anyway just to be polite. I was shocked when they said yes. They drank the wine like a shot instead of sipping it. I kinda enjoyed watching the guilt wash over their faces. It’s safe to say that I was a bad influence.
Most Amish people looked like ancient teenagers. Their diets, sun damage, and lack of teeth seemed to drastically age them. It was hard to tell people’s age in Southern California too, thanks to botox, tanning, and plastic surgery.
Stoner Dean, the town hero, lived on one side of me. He ate roadkill, drank beer, and shot cans on his porch. He was a true hippy who had no desire to work or participate in society. Most of the locals appreciated his ways and helped support him. On the other side of my cabin was his ex wife Jolene, who was by far the coolest person in town. She had a goth vibe and worked in the yoga industry. It was strange living in between a couple that was in the middle of a gnarly divorce. One of their daughters sold weed, so they hooked me up with some top shelf bud when I arrived. Their other kid was a heroin addict, which made them the main characters of all the juicy small town gossip. Thanks to them I got to smoke some big ol doinks in Amish.
It was weird knowing so much about the neighbors, considering how many acres were between us. Back in Hollywood people avoided acknowledging their neighbors' existence while living on top of each other.
Even though weed was still illegal in Indiana that didn’t stop people from smoking it. Many locals grew their own bud and used it to barter for other crops. Since we were on the border of several other states, it was easy to drive elsewhere to shop for it too.
People would ask me about life back in Hollywood. It was hard for me to explain entertainment news and modeling work to them. My LA life revolved around famous people they had never heard about. Having to explain the concept of celebrities to them made me realize how strange my culture was. I kept making pop culture references out of habit and people would have no clue what I was talking about. Those experiences inspired me to reevaluate who I was keeping up with and why. Over time I became more interested in the stars in the sky than the one on our screens.
I met some interesting characters in town at the laundromat. When I told one guy about my living situation he said it sounded worse than his military training camps. A lady overheard us and loved the fact that I was living in the woods amongst nature while learning about religions and spirituality. She was obsessed with angel numbers and encouraged me to learn more about numerology. Her daughter owned a big plot of land and she lived in a cabin on the corner of the property. Her ex baby daddy lived in a different house across from her on the other end of the same property. It was normal for exes to be neighbors out there, because there weren’t that many people.
The hottest town gossip was about an Amish girl who ran away from home and got a job as a truck driver. She wanted to see the world after spending her life on a small secluded farm. One day she drove a gigantic truck over a tiny historical iron bridge. The structure collapsed and the townspeople were outraged! Being so sheltered from the world made her lack common sense. Even though the locals were uneducated, they were very creative, kind, and hard working.
After a couple weeks there was a strange shift of energy in the air. It felt like someone was spying on me. Sadly it was not the magical forest fairies.
Unfortunately, one of my neighbors was creepy as fuck. His signature look was a camo hunting outfit with a beer in one hand and a shotgun in the other. He kept drinking and driving his tractor onto the landowners property. One time he asked me if I wanted to take a ride on his lap. I yelled “NOPE” then turned around and walked away. That creep gave kids rides on his lap all the time. It was super inappropriate, but totally normal out in hicksville.
The landowners asked me if I could clean their house and watch their kids instead of feeding the sheep and gardening. What the fuck? No. That was NOT our agreement. Their socially awkward homeschooled kids scared the shit out of me and their home was filthy as fuck.
The scary old neighbor kept parking in front of my cabin to get drunk and stare. That guy made me so uncomfortable. I repeatedly asked him to go away and leave me alone. Sometimes he would move a few yards away and continue to watch me. I told him to fuck off, but that didn’t stop him from stalking the shit out of me. Bitch made me feel like a Pretty Little Liar.
I ran over to Jolene’s house to ask her about the landowners and our other neighbors. She told me that everyone was insane and urged me to leave as soon as possible. Then she gave me a list of safer farm options in the area.
Jolene said that the landowners spent time in the local psych ward after sharing their stories about the fairies they met by the cabin in the woods.
Their spiritual, religious, and mystical tales sounded increasingly more plausible the longer I stayed there. Of course I couldn't tell anyone that, they would think that I was fucking crazy. Getting drugged up and thrown into a psych ward in the middle of bumfuck nowhere Indiana sounded like the worst case scenario.
I know that others have gone through similar experiences. So many people have explained their spiritual awakenings to American medical professionals, who diagnose them with psychological disorders, then suppress their beliefs with medications. All the supernatural stories made more sense to me than our capitalist societies and healthcare systems.
Was I going through a spiritual awakening or psychosis?
Maybe mentally ill people are magical and normal people are muggles. If you can see or hear things that other people can't, are you crazy or do they just lack your set of superpowers and abilities?
America needs a makeover, but we drug up and repress the people that would create the most powerful changes. Most humans are like sheep who just follow the herd. The ones who think for themselves get locked up and labeled crazy. Our government fears they’ll disrupt the system, but maybe that’s what it needs.
Our wealthy old as fuck politicians can’t help change our societies for the better if they can’t relate to the people who are struggling. They don’t ask mentally ill or homeless people about their opinions, which could actually help solve their housing problems. They just keep making more things for normal neurotypical standards and wonder why it doesn’t work for everyone.
When I left Jolene’s place my creepy stalker was waiting outside for me. As usual he was lurking around the corner with a beer and a gun. Sadly I was used to having stalker issues, but that dude was next level terrifying.
I ran through the woods as fast as possible to get away from him. There were dead animals all over the place. When I got back to the cabin I looked up the spiritual meanings behind them, which urged me to move on, and start over. I still wanted to live in the wild, but I needed some money and safety. Leaving sounded easier than calling cops or buying more weapons. There was no need to wait around to see what was going to happen next.
I knew it was best to move quickly and quietly. Most of my things got left behind, because I wanted to get out of there unnoticed before dark. I put Lando and my essential belongings in the car and drove off without saying goodbye.
Then I called the landowners from the road to thank them for having me and explain why I left. They got super upset and begged me to come back. At least they were happy to get my old stuff for free.
I knew that I could eventually get new possessions later on. I was already minimalistic, so everything was easily replaceable. Simply surviving felt like an accomplishment.
If you’re ever in a situation you need to leave, just fucking do it. There’s no need to give people the opportunity to manipulate your goals and plans. You can always apologize or explain yourself later if necessary.