by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

I sent my daughter a photo of three cats playing on the roof (of a car and a house) across the street. She messaged back, "You might miss that view." And I will because I am moving to the Manantial neighborhood in colonia Allende (a ways up and off Cinco de mayo).

My dear friend Veronica is moving back to Chile and I am taking her place. The plan is for me to stay on the first floor until the third floor is finished and then move up there. Yasna, Vero's childhood friend, also from Chile, lives on the second floor.

Until now the only finished part of the third floor has been Vero's bedroom. The rest of that level, besides a small roofed sitting area, has served as the ladies' laundry featuring, everywhere except under the clotheslines, a veritable jungle of potted plants. But the plants have found a new home up front on the bedroom's veranda, the washing machine has been relocated downstairs, and the partial roof has been fully extended.

Manantial, like Valle de Maiz, up higher alongside the same ridge, was first inhabited by the indigenous Chichimeca. Even with the conquest both places, hamlets of their own, were outside of San Miguel, separated from it and from each other by wide expanses of goat pastures, orchards and scrub. Both sites (and original San Miguel as well) were chosen because they had sources of water; Manantial means "spring."

Gradually San Miguel grew, swallowing up the two neighborhoods, but never digested them. Each neighborhood retained an independent identity, still has its own vibe. People in Manantial remember the stream that used to flow down what is now calle Manantial; "My grandfather had an orchard on that corner."

My new place will have a lot of windows, although not as many as my current apartment. And there are some views, although nothing as panoramic as those which are mine now from this hillside tower (in colonia Insurgentes above San Luis Rey).

Colonia Insurgentes
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My moving is a trade-off, exchanging this quiet, distant magnificence for the closeness of society. It's a similar choice to the one I made when I gave up my place in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. There in the least populated corner of the least populated state in the Union, my land was past the dead end of a country dirt road, on the trail leading up towards Bald Mountain.

From that dead end we reopened the "closed" town road, nothing more than a wide path, for one half mile through the woods, widening it enough to drive up, although in winter the preferred vehicle was a snowmobile. In a remote corner of an already remote, rustic region, my place in Vermont was the last human outpost, extending into and surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of forest.

View into Canada from Bald Mountain
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An old-timer told me, "You live up in the hat," referring to the clouds that occasionally settled on the crown of Bald Mountain. He was exaggerating. I was down the trail a little from the mountain itself, but I took the compliment. The views were stupendous. The quiet was profound. And it was not for the faint-hearted.

I tried to run the property as a retreat. I had paying guests who wouldn't venture farther than the lawn I kept mowed right around the lodge. They declined to walk any of the paths, which I also kept mowed, through the four-acre meadow spreading out up from the lodge. (The rest of the meadow I maintained by periodically pulling a brush-hog through it, a fearsome cutting machine, dragged behind my tractor.) I knew better than to suggest to these less than adventurous guests that we follow the wide trail that left the top of the meadow and wound its way up to Bald Mountain's fire tower. City parks are one level of nature. Wilderness is another.

In a very similar way where I am in colonia Insurgentes is a last human outpost. If you look on a map, you'll see that San Luis Rey sticks up northward like a thumb of urban San Miguel. I live on the tip of the thumb. Yes, there are towns and cities beyond, but they are far and few out there, like small single lights in the infinite (counting the nighttime sky) darkness. Here the distinction is clear, the division between the city and the inhuman vastness of the land.

I noticed the sensation as soon as I moved here (from colonia San Antonio) two years ago. It's the same isolated, lonely feeling I had in Vermont. Come visit during the day and you'll appreciate the quiet and the view. But live here and, night after night, the distance gets to you, staring out at the lights of the city like some island across a black sea.

It's eerie, awesome in the original meaning of the word, like going to the beach during the off season, when there is no one around. I don't know how my neighbors feel, but up here in Insurgentes, alone as I am, I live on a psychic shore, wave-crashed and wind-blown.

Vermont was too remote, for a retreat center and for me. Colonia Insurgentes is also too remote, not geographically, but psychologically. I socialize less since moving here not because of the physical distance (which really isn't much), but because of the difficulty of changing my mind from country mode to city.

The northern edge of the city from the author's roof
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I've spent a lot of time in Manantial, visiting Veronica (we were a couple for years) and pet-sitting when both she and Yasna were away. I'm a friendly sort and the neighbors there like me. And I have an idea for the first floor there:

I've got my restaurant experience (my father had his) and Yasna is a real whole-foods chef. Without knowing who Bill Gates was, she cooked for him and his family for a week at a Costa Rican retreat center. He gave her a big tip. I'm not sure she knows who he is yet.

Next week, Yasna comes back from months in Chile. If she agrees, we might open up a supper club on the first floor there in our house in Manantial. Now, as someone once told me, "Opening up a restaurant is like inviting cancer into your body," (G-d forbid), but a single menu item each night: Monday red sauce, Tuesday chili, Wednesday Thai... (with leftovers — a lot of dishes are better the next day — we could have two menu items) severely limits the effort and waste.

Along the northern edge of the city
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Yasna is looking for a place to do her detoxification program (there are two bedrooms for guests), and I'd like to launch Lokkal's community center, including daytime activities, and...

Yes, moving to Manantial is a trade-off, swapping this very beautiful, very quiet, isolated living for the sociability of being more in town. Old age has taught me one of life's difficult lesson, how to let go. In advance, even while still watching them from my front window, I already miss the cats on the roof across the street. But I look forward to being back among people.