by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

It's about as far away as you can get... in the eastern United States... at least above West Virginia... conveniently. Vermont is sparsely populated (except around Burlington high up in the northwest corner of the state). With more cows than people, the state's Northeast Kingdom is where Vermonter's go to get away from it all, especially favoring magnificent Lake Willoughby, where my piece of paradise lay.

I owned a very interesting wobbly ridge (including a ninety-foot cliff -- what a view!), 150 acres of gently-sloped forest and four acres of meadow. The forest came back after it was cut (and sold for lumber) 30 years before I bought it. During those 30 years the meadow itself didn't grow up into forest because the skidders changed the watershed. That is, the machines that drag the cut trees negligently blocked the way the water previously flowed off the ridge, causing it all to spill out across the meadow, rendering all but the high points of the meadow too wet to grow trees, as tree roots need oxygen. We had a lot of water.

My meadow
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The first thing we did (technically in violation of Act 250, the state's law against changing water courses) was to dig out the earthen dam (the skidder rut) that blocked the creek bed at the base of the ridge, restoring the old watershed and so drying out the meadow. Then I and my crew of five set about clearing the meadow, cutting down the mostly spindly trees, those that got small purchase on those elevated areas, and piling them up into huge mounds. Two men worked the chainsaws and four of us were brush huckers, dragging the cut trees to the pile, standing them on end, lifting them, balancing them in two hands like you might try to balance a gigantic broom, and then, letting them lean in the direction of the pile, we'd throw them up on top of the pile.

That was my first summer in Vermont. It was rugged and glorious. Towards the end of it, during dinner at the "main house" on the commune, my immediate neighbors down the road where we all stayed, one of the guys was making fun of how skinny I am, my sinewy arm muscles. Luke, a captain of the crew, who worked one of the chainsaws, rose to my defense, "Yes, but each of those tendons is like a steel cable."

The Main House, Mad Brook Farm
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My work ethic, as on display there in Vermont, is a virtue and a vice. A negro spiritual that I heard as a boy sums it up, "Joshua was the son of Nun. Never would quit 'til the work was done. Little David, play on your harp hallelu." That's me, Little David, not quitting. Writing this right now, I am hungry and should get up and eat, but I am behind schedule and wanted to get a purchase on this article, set down its first roots, because it will need some time to grow up, to branch and leaf and flower, and this week I don't have much of that. But let me go eat and then, with a better blood sugar level, I'll tell you why.

Postprandial: I changed my residence 15 days ago on the first of July. At this moment, as I write this on the first floor, the workers are constructing my new abode on the third floor. It will have the views and light that I got used to at my last apartment, if not quite as much of either. Down here on the first floor, where we will launch Club Lokkal, the great room was rather dim. A better set of windows would help. Repainting the walls already has helped. Those were a mottled swirl of orange, varying from dark to darker, and clashing with the considerable tiling of the room.

Three days ago, Monday, testing my mettle. I prepared the space, bought or borrowed what I needed, and got to it, applying two coats of primer to the large room, working until 8pm. Tuesday, I applied a coat of paint, bone white. Wednesday, yesterday, I added a second coat. Today, although I am famous for inflated optimism when it comes to estimating workload, I have just an hour's worth of brushwork around the base of two walls; no more ladder-work!

Yesterday was Veronica's last day at work, teaching arts and crafts to children at Escuela Valle de Nubes. My former lover and still a dear friend, she is moving back to Chile at the end of the month, and since my arrival has been living in the "casita" of her childhood friend, Yasna, here on the second floor. This morning, Yasna and she, and a number of other femininas all went to the hot springs for the second goodbye party (there was a dinner last night at the school), una despedida. (In Mexico, saying goodbye is more important than saying hello.) On her way out the door this morning, Veronica asked me when the great room would be in order (everything has been moved away from the walls towards the center of the room), as it will be the site of tomorrow evening's third goodbye party, a Shabbat dinner for a dozen non-Jews and me.

Vero is very impressed with the change that a lighter color paint has wrought in the great room, but she is also very impressed with the fact that a dozen guests are coming to dinner tomorrow night and that the room currently, except for the walls, is a wreck. So, with the girls at the waters, and this article already branching out healthily (and with breakfast already in my belly), let me leave off my normally monomaniacal work focus and go put the finishing touches on those walls so that I can at least have the furniture mostly back in place before they get back. There will be time enough to get this article to my translator this afternoon, as I must, and time also to start the spaghetti sauce for tomorrow's dinner as I also must. Now, where did I leave those paint-spattered shorts?

Several hours later: the finishing touches of paint took just about the time I imagined they would, but washing down the counters, rearranging things, sweeping the floor and making lunch unsurprisingly took much longer than expected. My chronically underestimating the time that will be required to accomplish a task is a genetically programmed survival mechanism; if we knew how much work would be involved in finishing something, many times we just wouldn't start.

Club Lokkal: dinner club, community center, workshop space, outreach to the Mexican community... might be a lot of work, but I think I have simplified it. The dinners, one or two days each week, will feature one or two menu items each evening: spaghetti or curry or Thai or Mexican... And sometimes we will have guest chefs who already have a following, but don't want the commitment involved with a restaurant. In terms of a community center, I'm sure that I can get professional artists to each come, once or twice, and inspire kids in an art class, and speakers to come inspire teens. Lokkal Foundation is already doing outreach in the Mexican community. Club Lokkal will be a "storefront" to further those efforts.

Then, I hope to get involved in holistic tourism. The first floor here has two guest bedrooms, one of which I can use myself, if someone wants to rent the whole third floor. I just bought the domain www.sanmiguelnatural.com. (I love that the name is bilingual). Yasna, on the second floor, (an organ detoxification therapist and a gourmet natural foods chef who cooked for Bill Gates and his entourage at a Costa Rican retreat center) and I (a naturopathic doctor) together have 28 years exploring San Miguel naturally and can serve as mentors and guides to anyone wanting to experience a healthier lifestyle while discovering the city holistically.

It's very ambitious, and you may call me a dreamer, but I imagine an integration, with content and effort being multi-purposed, a community symbiosis. Yasna, very impressed with the way the third floor is coming together, with the work ethic I demonstrated in painting the great room and with my spaghetti sauce, is already halfway committed to the enterprise. And with the orange paint banished, I've already started contacting other possible principals. I give my first tour of the future Club Lokkal tomorrow. Wish me well.

Meanwhile, that's my article for this week. Thanks for reading.