On not being alone, and all the busy-ness that comes with it.

My New Home in Cardiff

You know that feeling you get with a really good book? Not after you've finished, slot-it-back-on-the-shelf-satisfaction kind. Not the bit at the start, the first few pages - anticipation. Breathe in before you start a mountain, searching for snowy peaks.

No, I mean the kind you get within a book, when you cannot help but stop mid-page as the beauty of language washes over you in a pour of summer rain. It's a feeling I've known, ironically, far more frequently the older I get and the less time I seem to have for reading. Back when a was a book-a-day kind of girl, perhaps there were too many words for me to see amongst the trees. Like how an entire pack of chocolate bourbons tastes probably just as good as one or two (not that I'd know, of course, those things are fire and I've demolished so many packs since returning to the UK).

Of course, I likely have all the time in the world for reading, but give it all to socialising or screens. That's one of my many goals this year - to read more and scroll less (ah yes! You agree, the communal cry of modernity).

One such book was finished yesterday, and I just knew I had to blog about it. This beautiful book with its magic richness in language is 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' by Mitch Albom. It crossed my path in an Oxford bookshop, £9.99 with a free coffee.

Unassuming navy cover. Serif font.

'Do not ignore me', it seemed to say, 'I am important'.

In the six days since that purchase, I can assure you - it did not lie.

'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' follows Eddie, a theme park repairman who is crushed to death in an accident whilst trying to save a terrified child. As he dies, he feels two small hands clasp his. And then he feels nothing. Before feeling everything all together, all at once. Albom's heaven in this book is no biblical garden, no razor-wire of existence or fizzle into particles moulded into the soul of another. Instead, heaven is stories. Our own, and those we have helped others write into existence. Eddie is faced with five people - some known to him intimately, some nought but strangers - whose lives are inextricably woven within his. And through these five people, he comes to realise the measure of a human life.

The book is beautifully written - expecially in the beginning and middle. But I'm not writing (nearly three months since my last post - eek!) a book report. I'm writing because this book made me do the best think a book can do.

It made me think. About the nature of my life, of all our lives. About how my consciousness is the most amazingly rare thing - and how grateful I am in some moments to sit and think about the nature of my being. How this can't all last forever. How I've outlived so many people, and how so many others will outlive me. If this book's version of heaven were to be real, who out of the thouands of people I have met or known or passed by briefly would be there to greet me on the other side?

Who would you like to see, reader? Five people, who've impacted your life in the smallest or largest of ways. Maybe we'd meet each other, you and me. Though the chances of that are miniscule.

Unlike the answers to all these questions, which are infinite. Because however you live, you cannot help but impact hundreds upon thousands of people just by existing day-to-day.

It's little surprise really, that this book had such an effect on me. It's common knowledge how much I enjoy 'people' stories, ones that explore the threads between us. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (CloudatlascloudatlasIloveyoucloudatlaspleaseseemytattooforfurtherevidence), Makoto Shinkai's Suzume, even my own first pancake of a novel. Tales that tell what art can do whilst you're too busy forgetting in the everyday - another reason why we need to keep funding Arts and Culture services, so people everywhere can read or see or hear something and remember they are not alone.

These are the kind of stories I love - ones that remind us of how unindependent we must be to be human. We need people - to grow our food, to make our homes, to hold at night or purify our water. It's so easy sometimes in the humdrum of life and bills and Netflix drops to remember this fact, but when you do, it's like remembering that you breathe. Something so natural, so life-affirming, that you have to stop and focus and realise that no man, woman, person is an island. Then, easy as an exhale, you realise for how much others do for you, how much you must do for them in return.

Once you become aware of this reality, it does not easily leave you. I feel it - everywhere. In nature, cities, packed in like sardines between shoulders and shopping bags on the bus. Smiles I send to the woman I pass every day on my way to work. She's taking her children to school. Those smiles, I get back. Reaching out in a nightclub and feeling someone clasp on at the other end - snap. My friend, guiding me through the crowd. Soft. Warm and delicate in the noise. Reaching again, backwards this time, to connect with another hand behind. Leading each other through crowds in a line, we make it to the bar and order shots. Our elbows rest on a bar sugared-sweet and sticky. I can barely hear over the crowd. But still, I smile anyway.

It's so easy to feel alone in a crowd.

Believing that you are, though, is the biggest lie in the world.

Which kind of expains why I've been so neglectful of my blog recently. That realisation, reader, is what always drives me to do better, be better, and use my time to leave things better than they were found.

It is a great thing, to love and be loved in return. I've felt it so much these last few months, with friends, family, and a wonderful December introducing Mitch to the UK before he moves here properly in April. I've been truly humbled by your kindness everyone, for that I will be forever grateful.

But there are many people who are bereft of love, of hope, of connection to others. So bereft that they become misled souls painted the colour of hate. Over the past few years, I have watched the threat of Hate loom large, taking over our screens and governments - something must be done. And as I am not alone, I know I can help do it.

With the Senedd election coming up in May, I've thrown myself into the Cardiff Green Party's campaign, making the most of proportional representation to take away as many seats from Reform as possible in what will undoubtedly be the first ever non-Labour Welsh government. I have met some wonderful, passionate people, knocked on hundreds of doors, and recently travelled down to London as the only Welsh representative on the Green's Amelia Womack mentoring scheme. It may seem like I've thrown myself in the deep end - and maybe I have. But I've always said that when regarding your own life, you should always try to do the coolest, bravest thing possible. And for me, that thing is giving my time and energy to help support the people of Wales be who I know we are: kind, hardworking, rising above expectations and always, always looking out for one another.

What's your next cool, brave, kind thing?

Whatever it is, I hope you can start it soon. Or that you keep working towards it if you've already started, no matter how intimidating this life might be.

Whatever it is, reader, remember this thing. That even when times are hard and it feels like all this effort may come to nothing - a waste of time, a wasted life:

“The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.”

(Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven)

I promise to write sooner next time, reader. With more news and more life. Until then, best of luck for whatever this year holds.

All my stars,

Char

P.S. If you have elections coming up, please remember to register to vote. Even if you don't agree with the system, you can still campaign against it whilst voting against hate. Love you xoxo (https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote)

Ready and Raring to make a change, starting at the top!