Gettin' Started

Greetings One and All, My apologies to those of you who have been eagerly awaiting some news from your wayward friend. I'm happy to report that I'm alive and well, presently living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina under the gracious hospitality of Janet and Billy Files. This is my first blog, my first blog entry - first anything really - so I'm figuring this out as I go along. I imagine soon I'll find a way to ad neat little polls, quizzes and photos. But for now, you get boring old words. So, to roughly sum up the last 6 weeks . . . I had a fabulous going away party on September 6th in Saratoga. It was a beautiful day marked by swimming, munching and bouncy house shenanigans. Thank you once again to those of you who attended. On Sept 13th, with the invaluable help of my fabulous brother Anthony, I packed the moving truck and said goodbye to Meg, Bob, Eliot, Jordan, Dexter and Tucker, and to Saratoga. Once again WillWell's, thank you for everything over the past 7 years. I then spent the next two weeks in scenic Fallbrookk CA with my mother, sister Christina and brother Merwan. It took nearly the entirety of that time to figure out what to do with all of my stuff. Mother dearest, my eternal gratitude for your willingness to store my belongings for what appears to be an indefinite period of time. The rest of the time was spent booking airfares and sorting finances online in the local coffee house. Thanks Christina for the generous lending of your laptop. And Ann, a pleasure to meet you! After some more visits with rest of my clan, including my father Michael who was back for a few weeks from India, brothers Francis and Anthony, and our Grandfather Charles and his wife Abby who made the trip from France to celebrate his 90th birthday in LA, I departed for South Carolina on September 28th. I arrived on a Sunday and immediately began my 9 week post on Monday working with the maintenance crew at the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - www.mehercenter.org. It's a place of spiritual retreat dedicated to Meher Baba, Indian spiritual master and Avatar of the age. I've been going there for years. It's beautiful and truly one of my favorite places on Earth. Photos to follow soon. For the past 3 weeks I've been painting buildings, sanding and refinishing porches and a stage, refinishing furniture and digging up a backed up septic tank - well, actually, nearly falling into said septic tank. My co-worker Joe and I were standing on top of the tank when a dirt-covered seem in the concrete slabs that make up the lid gave way under my foot revealing a perfect shoe sized breach. Next thing I knew my left leg was thigh high in pure, raw sewage! Yummy. I traded cozy air conditioned counseling offices for septic tanks and staph infection threats! The incident ended up not being too bad. A couple hours later I was out of the doctor's office with a cleaned leg, fresh tetanus booster and 5 day's worth of antibiotics, just to be on the safe side - good as new! I've slowly been reconnecting with the many people I know and love here in the Meher Baba community in Myrtle Beach - have even made a couple of new friends along the way. As of now I'm booked to go to Argentina in December, Fiji in early January (which will include a 24 hour layover in LA on Christmas) and from there I'll head to Australia sometime mid January. Once in Australia I plan to not have a plan - to visit all of the family I have yet to meet on my mother's side in Melbourne, and then slowly make my way north, doing most of the East Coast as possible. Once I've had enough, we'll see where life takes me then . . . I'll do my best to make an entry once a week. However, for now through December 2nd I am easily reachable by email, and by phone for those of you in the US. Drop me a line any time should you feel moved. With love and thoughts of you. Jonathan