Dear World: Rural America Isn’t as “Peaceful” as You Think

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

It costs $21 to ruin your life.

At least, it does here in rural America.

Twenty-one dollars will barely wave at a martini in Philadelphia.

But out here?

$21 on a Friday afternoon gets you choices. Bad ones. Historic ones.

This week, I dared to venture out of the house, which these days is MONUMENTAL, since a) I write on my sofa for a living; b) It’s so cold, the inside of my windows are literally frozen * scrapes with fingernail *; c) And lately, visibility feels…almost too intimate. Like if you SEE MY FACE you are practically SEEING MY BOOBS, and then I need to perform. Not, like, do a lap dance, but maybe metaphorically??? A metaphorical lap dance as I try to make you like me and make you think I’m funny and make you think I’m smart and make you think I’m going to be the kind of person who will become your most dearest friend in the whole wide world.

I hate urges like these. Urges to be extraordinary. I wish I had the urge to make you fear me. You know those kinds of people? The ones that don’t smile and don’t need to? The difference between them and me is 1,000 invisible performances—and how fast you can turn being seen into a job.

This is one of the reasons why being here in the countryside has been restorative: there are less stakes. Less theater to participate in. The emphasis is on being reliable, not being remarkable. I can move through a day without turning my personality into a product.

That pause matters. Because that—packaging yourself for constant circulation—is the core requirement of being a personal brand.

And, it’s also why I largely opt-out of traditional social media. I like building machines. I don’t like being a cog in one. I prefer systems with an off-switch.

Yes, moving to the countryside has been restorative because there is less stimulus, and honestly? We can ALL use less stimulus. Less noise. Less cars. Less input. Less demands on our attention. Being maxed out every single day of your life is not an approved wellness plan.

But, on the other hand?

Sometimes, as I’ve discovered, the flip side of less stimulus is that there are fewer places to disappear. Which is how I learned that sometimes, in rural America, being seen feels…intimate in a way I did not, ahem, expect.

This past week, I met up with a friend at the kind of place that you would only know about if you knew about it, which is to say it’s an old wooden country bar on a dirt road with a pond in the back and at least one guy who shows up regularly on his horse, which I now weirdly respect. 🤷‍♀️

We each had two glasses of witch’s armpit juice, which is what I call the typical sweet, cheap, assy Californian wine they serve in the middle of the woods—and my only option. I did, on a crapshoot, ask if they had any prosecco, since sometimes they host weddings, but when the bartender went to ask the woman sitting at the corner of the bar, the woman scoffed as if I were asking for something impossible, like an actual jawline.

Then, we ordered the thing I only order at this specific place, on these specific kinds of occasions:

Hot, molton, deep-fried mozzarella sticks.

Which may be one reason I don’t have an actual jawline.

You ever have certain weird little twisted love affairs with specific foods in specific places? I don’t order anything else from there. And, I don’t order mozzarella sticks anywhere else. I’ve got a connection with ye ol’ mozzarella stick in ye ol’ country bar—and yes, I know my life is going to be shorter for it.

We ate. We sipped. We peed in bathrooms with things like “This place 4-EVERRRRR” written in marker on the stalls. Normally these are people from New Jersey who come here skiing, and then naturally think this country podunk bar is the best, most fun, most hilarious thing ever. They pull up on side-by-sides and wear their Lululemon and you can always tell when someone is from New Jersey because their lips are plump and their asses are, too, and their hair has the kind of highlights you can only get in New Jersey.

I remember when I was those things. I can still be those things, sometimes. Like when I return to Philadelphia, as I did a couple weeks ago, and suddenly find myself find myself transforming into the polished, professional, “yacht-club” version of myself. It’s a creepy form of code switching. I went to Longwood Gardens to see the Christmas display and suddenly, walking around that mansion with its opulent doors and walnut wood panels and chandeliers, I was home again—but in a different way. My “20’s” home. I went to grad school in nearby West Chester, an affluent, old-money town with good manners and better landscaping, got my master’s in Linguistics, and lived there for years. It’s where I came of age. It’s where I learned how to drink a martini. It’s where I learned how to speak in THE VOICE: you know the one; that soft, polite, pitch-perfect voice you use to speak to order in a restaurant? It’s where I learned how to say things like “This is perfect, thank you so much,” and “If it’s not too much trouble…” and “Neat is fine.”

West Chester is where I learned how to smooth myself down into something consumable. Pleasant. Lightweight. Easy to place.

And that voice comes back fast. Like muscle memory. The moment I step onto a cobblestone street.

Sometimes I still use THE VOICE in the country podunk bar, but it immediately feels out of place. Instead, I substitute “polish” for “enthusiasm.” Enthusiasm passes as friendliness, rather than prissiness. So, instead of saying, “Oh, if it’s not too much trouble,” I’ll say, “PLEASE hook me up with the largest glass of wine you can legally pour without going to jail.”

Which, if I’m being honest, I’d probably say anywhere.

But, isn’t it interesting that who you are is less an objective truth, and more a contextual one?

When we got up to leave and I asked for the bill, this was when I was reminded that reality is vastly different for Americans everywhere, even just 200 miles apart.

The bill?

For four jumbo 9+ ounce glasses of witch’s armpit juice—not three, not two, not one, but FOUR—and an order of hot, molten mozzarella sticks?

In West Chester would have easily been $100.

Our bill, however? Was just twenty-one dollars ($21 USD).

Just twenty-one dollars to ruin your life.

Or, at least your blood sugar.

So, there are INTERESTING things about being in rural America. The dollar certainly goes a lot farther. The day does, too. And, being here, with less constant stimuli, feels like full-body therapy.

But, there’s a trade.

Less stimulus—less commotion, less people, less hiding among the crowd—also means more visibility.

You are there.
And you are seen.

And that means you have to perform in entirely new ways.

Not as a member of polite society—no dress code, no credentialing, no urbane camouflage—but as a member of something smaller, sharper, and far more personal. A place where your presence is noticed, remembered, and quietly accounted for.

Most people romanticize country life for the quiet, but vastly under-calculate the psychological impact of being known.

Which is maybe why lately going out to socialize feels like doing even more emotional labor than usual: there’s no distance here. And, that distance used to offer space. To choose how much to offer. It turned being seen into a gradual process instead of a collision.

When distance disappears, intimacy accelerates.

It’s like being emotionally topless in a room full of people who haven’t discovered the pause button—while someone on $21 worth of gas-station wine keeps asking you very personal questions.

And this is why you can no longer “perform.”

When you live in a small town, you must participate.
You must be present.
You must take up space honestly.
You must let your actual ~life~ be the thing on display.

Not your shoes.
Not your purse.
Not your job title.
Not the carefully lacquered version of yourself that only exists under good lighting.

Just… you.
On a Tuesday.
In line at the hardware store.

Out here, nothing asks you to be extraordinary.
It just asks you to be accountable.

No one cares what you do for work.
They care whether you show up.
Whether you come back.
Whether you remember their name when you do.

Small towns don’t flatter you.
They don’t mirror back your best angles.
They don’t care what you’re building online.

They only care if you show up offline.

Which means there’s nowhere left to hide the parts of yourself that cities used to absorb on your behalf.

And maybe that’s the real exchange rate.