Dispatches from the Void. X.V.

Mowgli: Still Not Over the Betrayal.
Dragged from Behind the Couch Like a Common Toddler. Emits Tragic Low Growls. Files Formal Complaint With The Curtain. Writes Haiku Series Titled “Claw Me From the Darkness, Must You?” Refuses Eye Contact With Everyone Except the Vacuum Cleaner.

Akela: Diagnosed With Phantom Drop Disorder.
Clings to Celia Like a Victorian Wraith. Flees Every Time a Bottle Caps. Bans All Liquids from Bedroom. Unironically Sleeps in a Pile of Clean Laundry Entitled Sanctuary.ox.

Poe: Poe: Prepares for Transdimensional Voyage.
Stares at Carrier With Eerie Calm. Requests Passport. Whispers to the Vaccination Certificate. Meditates in Litter Box. Claims to Know Something We Don’t. Aura Now Flickering.

This Week in Underland:

• Emigration, Exhaustion, and Emotional Armour
  Final countdown begins. Resistance in the form of cuddles and composting jumpers.
• Somebody Feed Phil and Also Approve the Damn Visa
  Bureaucracy delays. Emotional support television sustains. Cats judged us silently.
• Love, Logistics, and the Looming Crate
  Bureaucracy plays chicken. Trump ruins everything. Cats prepare for international espionage.

This week in Underland has been stressful. There’s really no beating around the bush, we’re less than a month away from our move to Thailand, and it very much feels like everything is hurdling toward us at once.

The big issue is that most things can’t actually be done until it’s time for them to be done. While we’re ready—with documents in hand and a willingness to rent our house, we can’t move forward until bureaucracy gives us the green light.

We did have a moment of panic when we realized I couldn’t apply for a visa through the London Embassy, since I’m not a UK citizen. In hindsight, that probably should have been obvious, but we assumed that because I’m going on Celia’s visa, I’d apply through there. Luckily, the internet exists, and I won’t need to make a detour to NYC before flying to Thailand.

We took the cats to the vet for their final vaccinations on Tuesday. It was traumatic all around, but it went about as well as you’d expect. Shoutout to the stray next door for making Poe jealous enough to catch, putting them in their carriers was much smoother than we anticipated.

The house still looks like a bomb site, but things are slowly disappearing. We have a collection scheduled for a charity shop next week, which should bring some relief. Personally, I’m excited to get rid of the clothes I won’t need anymore. Right now, we’re living in chaos, and neither of us is handling it particularly well.

We’re lucky, though. The hurdles we’ve had to overcome to be together would have easily broken other couples. We’re not done with the big steps yet, but we’re dedicated to making this as easy as possible on each other. There’s something to be said for quiet, calm love.

Hopefully this coming week will be less stressful. We’re moving—even if it feels slow, and even if it doesn’t feel very far just yet.

R x

I don’t have much to say this week, if I’m honest. I’m a bit done in with it all. The world feels unbearably heavy—sad in that deep, bone-tired way. I watch the news from America with a quiet churning in my stomach. The cruelty of Trump and his band of brothers. And the women who cheer them on. I can’t fathom it.

Then I see my wife—gutted by it all. The guilt hangs on them like smoke, like being the survivor of something unspeakable. I want to hold them, hold them for dear life and never let go—but we’re not there yet. We’re so close, and still, the world we long for feels just out of reach.

And how do you let yourself embrace something beautiful when the people you love are hurting?

I don’t know. It’s a lot.

But I am grateful. So grateful for them.

These days, my favourite time is the evening, when we curl into bed and watch Somebody Feed Phil. It’s silly. Gentle. Kind. And, frankly, about all we can bear right now.

The visa situation is a huge weight. I know it’s behind much of the current fog. The waiting. The hoping. The knowing that this has to work. We have to be together. We’ve crossed hell and high water to make it happen. And if the Thailand plan falls through, I don’t know what we’d do or where we’d go.

And of course—there are the cats. Our little chaos goblins. Poe, Mowgli, Akela. I think about them often in all of this, bundled into crates, alone in the belly of a plane, crossing continents just like us. I know we’re doing everything we can to make it safe for them. But they didn’t ask for any of this. They just want sun-warmed windowsills and biscuits at the right time. I’d give anything to promise them that.

But I know deep down we’ll figure it out.
I know love like this doesn’t stop.
And I know—more than anything—that it’s made warriors of us both. And the paws are warriors too.

Here’s to sooner rather than later 

C x

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Poetry Collection, ‘Is this all we get?’

Prose Collection, ‘ Fifth Avenue Pizza’