It's been a week so I can't edit my other response to this, but yes, Slimv was what I was missing. I read your second link and followed the instructions and am

It's been a week so I can't edit my other response to this, but yes, Slimv was what I was missing. I read your second link and followed the instructions and am now able to actually learn this language. Thank you for sharing. For anyone else that knows Vim but can't seem to get a good CL environment going, read https://susam.net/lisp-in-vim.html https://susam.net/lisp-in-vim.html