The Book of the City of Ghost Cats

I feel I have left us both on tenterhooks. You may – albeit briefly – have wondered: Did she make it to the UK? Is she even now floating somewhere in between, over Greenland, perhaps?

I can report, quite happily, that I’ve been here since late August. About when my keyboard on my laptop decided to give up the proverbial ghost. Or at least two or three of the most important letters – O, Y, T mutinied upon me and, mostly, but not always, would not work. This made long paragraphs, or really any sort of thoughtful writing nigh impossible.

And I suppose there were other ways of combatting this, but my head was truly all a’swirl with the realities of the move that I started to feel like it was an extraordinary ask to be able to encapsulate everything I was thinking and feeling…so I needed some time to think and feel first.

It’s only now that I’ve gotten a new laptop for myself that I feel the urgency to update the site and cancel the alarms. Have no fear. I’m here, I’m well, we’re happy, it’s…sort of all gone as planned.

Well, that’s mainly because the plan was to do our level best to be kind to ourselves about adjusting. It is so profoundly about little things, co-habitating things,

To learn about the necessities of preparing recycling so it can actually be properly recycled, the joys of Costa Coffee and M&S beef shin ragu, how and where and when to get the bus, how to interact with the NHS (which has worked surprisingly well in most cases for me).

We’ve been visiting Hull and London, I’ve been ill and better and now have this unrelated, intermittent, random cough that may be permanent? We’ve met friends, experienced an off-brand Wizard-themed Indoor Mini-Golf course, watched copious amounts of terrible movies to our great amusement. The news of the world has trickled in, but I’ve felt solidly…here. There’s been no hidden homesickness – moments of missing my sisters or missing my car, my ability to run to Target and pick up a desk lamp on a whim, wishing that time zones weren’t a thing so I could just send a message and know I’m not waking someone in the middle of the night. But these have been so slight. It’s also helped to know that I’ll be visiting home for Thanksgiving and there’s always something on the horizon.

But now, I’ve got the working keyboard and I don’t know what is next for the blog. What is of interest? I always wander through town and find something interesting – a bookbinding course, I’ve yet to get my own Ghost from the Ghost Merchants, endless people watching to share. At the start of the year, a pair of kittens to liven up the joint. Perhaps.

There’s something almost quiet and comfortable about my life right now that is ineffable, impossible to pin down. It’s hard to contemplate as I quietly sit on the couch, typing this post with red roses on the coffee table next to me, a full larder, warm and connected at exactly the level I care to be. I feel almost guilty that it’s worked so well, that we’re getting along, that I’m learning and that learning is improving me. I feel looked after in a way that I can only imagine is being orchestrated on my behalf. I think about my parents all the time, but not ALL the time. Enough.

So, that’s the broad strokes. The visa was issued, my boxes and I arrived at my boyfriend’s door and he let us in, and I’m experiencing life now as an expat. What rainy days are completely useless for an umbrella, where to find adequate Mexican food in York, how to lock a door, not to fall in the Beck, what is comfort? Learning what it all means. I’ll try and keep doing that and remembering to share it here, too.