Uncivilized
A thirty-something woman on a “healing journey” diagnoses herself as chronically disillusioned with civilization
Cover: Sonora Pass
Right now, I’m somewhere between the city and the woods, both literally and metaphorically. We’ve been spending about a third of every month living out of the van, parking wherever we can find quietude, trees, and a stretch of sky just visible enough that the Starlink still pulls through. Trust me, I’m ashamed to put more money in that Pasty Space Toddler’s giant pockets, but I’m directionally challenged and not that into drifting to sleep at night with only the chatter of my own thoughts to keep me company — so here we are. It’s a strange, noncommittal in-between: one foot in Wi-Fi, one foot in the wilderness.
And lately, I can’t stop thinking about what would happen if I just let the forest win.
(Dinner and a rattlesnake (not dinner) in our wild camping spot overlooking Loon Lake in California)
Some people choose wellness retreats. Others sit in yurts in someone’s backyard doing ayahuasca surrounded by tech bros until they’re sobbing and throwing up on themselves. Some people pay two grand to be told they’re not living up to their potential by some man on steroids with a headset and an overinflated ego. Some people are the ones doing the steroids. Some people take home a different barfly every Saturday night to tune out the silence of being alone. Some people choose to be alone to tune out the silence of the world. You could say I’ve become the latter — because I keep disappearing into the forest, and in the city, I disappear into myself, like a recluse captured and waiting to be set free again.
Out there, surrounded by pines and moss and things that bite, I finally feel like I belong somewhere. No emails. No neighborhood politics. No uncomfortable underwear. Nobody trying to sell me a forty-dollar candle with a label reminding me I’m a badass who just needs to “trust the universe.” Just me and the trees, staring each other down like we’re sharing a secret. Under that canopy, my brain finally finds the shutdown button. No drugs required.
The violently loud static of the outside world — the endless bad news, the nonstop Instagram ads promising “you don’t have to be overweight to take this knockoff Ozempic, click here,” the general human-created dumpster fire — all of it simmers down. And then I start thinking: what if I just… didn’t leave?
It’s not even the fantasy of building a cute little cabin and hand-churning butter in some Pinterest-core off-grid fever dream. No — although I’d take it. It’s something else. I picture myself being claimed by the forest — the trees rising up and wrapping their girthy roots around my ankles until I can’t escape. Taken advantage of by a muscular, much older evergreen conifer. Except it has my full consent, if anyone’s asking.
I fantasize about sending out my last message, short and sweet: “Sorry, loved ones and internet haters. I didn’t ghost you — I was simply kidnapped by some feral coyotes. Very traumatic. Please don’t send a search team, just respect my privacy during this difficult time. TTYL <3.”
Top Left and Top Right: Sardine Lake. Bottom Left: Gerle Lake. Bottom Right: Spicer Meadow Resevoir (California)
There’s something comforting about being taken hostage by nature. Making any sort of plan to go off-grid presents me with an opportunity to fail — to screw it up. People (like me) babble on about just living off the land, like we’re all born with some inner Bear Grylls. But in reality, I’d eat the wrong berry and dry heave myself to death within seventy-two hours. Or I’d proudly build a fire just to burn the outhouse down.
I keep fantasizing about abandoned, crumbling old mansions — the kind that some obnoxious content creator has already broken into for 300 views on YouTube. A home that once glittered with life and sexy parties now sits hollow, marble floors split open by roots, walls choked in ivy. At first it looks tragic — the death of something once beautiful — but I can’t help seeing it as a rebirth. A place has never looked more alive than when it’s been reclaimed by Mother Nature. And I can’t help but wish the earth would look at me the same way — see me as something worth swallowing whole, tethering down, making her own.
Rubicon Trail, Loon Lake California
The temptations of the wilderness can make me feel dangerous. It’s almost risky to find something that makes me feel this alive. For years, I lived like an alien mimicking human life — wake up, sip coffee to simulate joy, smile at the weird neighbor in the elevator, buy bananas I’ll forget to eat, pay bills like a good little drone, take pills to sleep, rinse and repeat.
When I wanted to feel like I belonged, I drank. I drank a lot. That was the ritual — the perfect shortcut. In recovery, the only time I’ve felt that same rush of belonging is in the forest. It’s intoxicating. Consuming. When I drag myself back to the city, I have to stomp those feelings so far down my own throat or I’ll start looking for something else to fill that wild void. It’s such an intense high that I leave painfully thirsty for more.
Aha as if to prove my point, my phone just buzzed. What else but a DoorDash notification? “Would you like to reorder from Total Wine & More?” Look at that, it even remembers my order. I should really turn those notifications off. Or settle for a burner phone, something less savvy, and really live like the wild woman I claim to be. But I won’t — because I’m a coward who’s addicted to checking the Citizen app every time I hear a loud bang outside my window after 8pm. It’s fireworks. I live by the beach — it’s always fireworks.
But you see why I’d rather disappear into the woods? Out there, the only thing that might kill me is a very desperate bear or a frightened rattler — not an algorithm determined to upsell me on my vice of choice.
Icehouse Resevoir, California
Maybe the secret to going off-grid is not to plan it. You don’t make an Instagrammable exit strategy or a YouTube survival series. Maybe we’re all carrying some old wisdom inside us that’s just waiting for the right excuse to claw its way out. Or maybe that’s how you end up being another Chris McCandless.
If I ever figure it out, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’ll keep walking into the woods, letting it swallow me up and spit me back out — a little more wanting, a little more alive — trying not to mistake that feeling for something I can buy on DoorDash.
Can it really be that hard to vanish on purpose?
Dry and Disorderly Zine
