The commune typically doesn't let journalists stay for more than three hours, so it was a real act of faith for them to let writer Alan Mairson and me spend the week at East Wind. I'm grateful that they decided to trust us and hope they don't regret it. Allowing a journalist into your life is always a risky venture. I also have a lot of admiration for their experiment because of the kind of assignments I've done abroad for National Geographic. I've worked with several indigenous communities around the world and seen how little they waste and how close they live to nature. They're very conscious of their place on Earth. So whenever I come back to the U.S., I often have horrible culture shock. Ours is a material culture, where people care about shopping, big houses, and how much you earn. But the people at East Wind are trying to live more simply. They have their successes and failures, but they're trying.
It rained four out of the seven days I was on assignment, which really made me feel like the meter was running. I guess my timing was just bad because the month before I went out, it had been sunny almost every day.
I was surprised to find stacks of old National Geographic magazines for leisure reading in the three outhouses at East Wind.
