Become a glove for Love

and no, I do not mean a condom!

Is anyone else feeling a little unnerved by the state of the world?

Not to mention the pace of the changes that are bearing down upon us?

A quick scroll on social media nowadays typically features news of how AI is going to wreck everything, graphic images of war and starvation, and the latest political buffoonery, all interspersed of course with the obligatory cute dog / cat / kid posts.

It’s enough to make the most well balanced mind spin.

Well, get yourself a cuppa and settle in for this week’s read. I think I might have found something to help keep us sane and smiling.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been staying in a town called Margate on the south east coast of England.

I’ve stayed here a couple of times since I began my nomadic adventures in 2023 and both times I got a lot of work done so I decided to return here this month as I have two book deadlines looming.

One is for a children's book about a cheerful cheetah and the other is a novel for adults set in Ukraine during World War 2 and the current full scale invasion.

It’s an interesting creative contrast to say the least! But I’m in the zone and the words are flowing so it’s all good.

I always treat the run-up to book deadlines like an athlete training for a major event, prioritising sleep, healthy food and exercise (the whisky slugging Hemingway is probably turning in his grave but with over 50 books under my belt, I can safely say it works for me!)

So, every morning, after meditation, yoga, shower and breakfast I head down to the beach, where I walk for an hour before setting up camp at my desk.

The beach walk I do is at the bottom of a cliff face and apart from the occasional jogger and dog walker, it’s pretty secluded.

my beach walk, on a typical British spring day!

The first morning I was here, I spied a man sitting on the beach by the footpath, gazing out to sea. I couldn’t see his face as he had the hood on his coat pulled right up but there was something about his pose and the slump of his shoulders that exuded sadness.

A few bags and binliners containing what I assumed were his belongings sat beside him on the sand.

It instantly occurred to me that he might be one of the asylum seekers who wash up on this part of the British coast, after making the treacherous journey across the channel from France.

I wondered if he was gazing out across the sea longing for loved ones he could no longer be with.

And that made me think of the millions of people all over the globe who are currently displaced due to climate change, famine or war (122.6 million to be precise) - my own Ukrainian daughter-in-law among them (6.8 million Ukrainians are currently displaced overseas due to the full scale invasion and another 3.7 million have been internally displaced).

It’s as if a giant hand has reached out through space and shaken the world like a snow globe, scattering people like snowflakes.

So many people have been physically cast adrift.

And countless others find themselves mentally shaken by the daily barrage of terrible news.

How do we find some way to anchor ourselves in such turbulent times, I pondered as I walked back to my apartment. How do we stay strong and hopeful?

The next morning when I went for my walk, the man was still there. Shoulders slumped, hood up, gazing at the sea.

And the morning after that and the morning after that.

I started to wonder if he moved at all.

Then, on day five, I noticed he’d set up a tiny camping stove in front of him and was heating a tin of beans over the flame. But he still had his hood up so I wasn’t able to see his face.

The next morning there was no sign of the stove and he was back to his usual pose.

The day after that I didn’t go for my walk as it was my weekly visit to my dad’s.

When I got to his apartment, my dad’s carer, a guy named Frank, was there.

Frank visits my dad four times a day - helping him get up and dressed in the morning, making his meals, and helping him get ready for bed in the evening.

My dad and Frank have developed a really funny dynamic - a slightly sarcastic Irish sage (the Withering Wise Man of Waterford, perhaps) and his young Ghanaian apprentice.

To give you an example, Frank has an impressive collection of brightly coloured high-top trainers. The first time he wore a pair in an almost luminous shade of tangerine my dad remarked (with a twinkle in his eye), ‘What … in the name of God … do ye have on your feet?’

To which Frank replied with his ever-present grin. ‘My trainers, sir.’ He calls my dad sir at every possible opportunity, which I can tell my dad loves!

When I arrived last Thursday, slightly flustered due to delayed trains, the Withering Wise Man and his young apprentice both smiled at me conspiratorially as soon as I walked through the door.

‘Frank says he’s never met a writer before,’ my dad said.

‘Oh,’ I laughed. ‘Well, he has now.’

It turned out that my dad had asked Frank to sort out his books and in doing so he’d come across some that I’d written.

‘I think it’s so great that you’re an author,’ Frank told me, and a lovely conversation ensued, during which I found out that Frank, who came to the UK from Ghana seven months ago, has a degree in Agriculture and is hoping to take his Masters at some point.

It instantly reminded me of the time a few years ago when I was in Paris with a friend who works at a university there. We were talking about the plight of the Syrian refugees at the time and she told me how she’d discovered that a middle aged Syrian man who was working at the university as a cleaner had actually been a surgeon back home.

Refugees don’t just leave their homes and loved ones behind - they have to leave their careers, their education and their dreams.

I thought again of the man on the beach. What profession had he left, I wondered. What dreams might he be pining for as he gazes out across the sea?

The next morning, before setting off on my walk, I had a quick scroll on Instagram. I was confronted with images of children starving in Gaza and apartment buildings being bombed in Ukraine, and I felt my inner equilibrium start to slip.

Then, I came across a video a friend had shared. It was of a woman trying to explain what having a belief in God means to her.

‘I liken it to a glove,’ she said. ‘A glove is created in the image of a hand but without a hand inside, it’s useless. I see us humans as being a bit like gloves. We’re created in God’s image so that God can fill us and work through us.’

Now, I’m not a member of any religion and I know that the word God can be hugely divisive but I do think that Love with an upper case L can be a great, and uniting, alternative.

So I sat for a moment and imagined myself as an empty glove and I pictured myself filling with the energy of Love, an energy that swirled all around me as well as inside of me.

And as I focused on how I could allow that Love to animate me just like a hand animates a glove, it felt like an answer and an anchor at the same time.

I set off on my morning walk contemplating how filling myself with Love every day could be the perfect practice for countering the current turbulence on the planet.

never stop loving either

Rather than succumbing to worry or fear, what if I asked myself every day and in every moment, what would Love do, and did that instead?

I was so deep in thought I didn’t realise that the man on the beach wasn’t in his normal pose until I’d almost drawn level with him.

This time he was looking for something in one of his bags so for once he had his back to the sea and he was facing me. And for the briefest of moments I saw his face beneath his hood.

He was older than I’d imagined - fifty-something, I’d guess - his skin was shiny and brown as a conker and he had a neatly trimmed grey moustache. The kind a university professor might sport. The sadness I’d sensed from his normal hunched pose was etched into his face.

I smiled at him and said, ‘Good morning.’

And watching his face change as it first lit up with surprise and then a beaming smile was like seeing the sun come out from behind a cloud.

Then he looked away and the moment was gone.

I carried on walking, my heart warmed from this moment of connection, and I noticed that someone had scribbled something in chalk on the wall by the cliff. I always like to read graffiti in case I find something with hidden depth or meaning and on this morning of unexpected connection and deep contemplation I was wide open for some inspiration.

So as I drew closer I stared at the words eagerly. And behold, this is what they said…

The fact that nobody has drawn a penis on this wall is really sad

I carried on walking, cracking up laughing.

It was as if, in less than one minute, I’d been treated to a taster sample of life in all its bitter sweet absurdity.

We live on a planet where millions are fleeing (man-made) climate change, famine and war, while others are bemoaning the lack of penis drawings on a wall.

There was something strangely reassuring about this good ol’ playground style humour.

But even more reassuring - to me at least - is the image of myself as a glove filled with Love. And it’s only as I type these words now that I realise the word glove actually contains the word love! My mind is blown, man! *said in my best rasping, stoner voice*

If we can fill ourselves with Love, and allow ourselves to become animated by that Love, like human gLove puppets, we can all do our bit to help balance out the bollox going on on our planet, not to mention stay sane and grounded.

Until next week, when I shall be bringing news of how I‘ll soon be moving into my first proper home in almost two years - with a slight twist!

Here’s to being human gLove puppets.

With love,

Siobhan