Mainlining glimmers
Surely we've got the technology to spark joy by now
I got locked out on Saturday night. There’s nothing quite like standing outside of your house at midnight to demonstrate how impenetrable it becomes when your keys have been spirited away at some point during the evening.
After 20 minutes I conceded that a career in burglary was not on the cards. Pretty embarrassing not even being able to break into your own house but it’s a lot harder than it looks on the telly, you know. I cursed myself for being so security conscious, if only I’d had left a window open or forgotten to lock the back door we’d be home and dry at this point. Literally.
Do you know when the perfect time to meet your next door neighbours is? It’s 12.30am on a Sunday morning, when you’re praying they’re not in bed (they weren’t) and you’re asking for help (they helped, with wine, and a power tool to smash open the pesky locks).
I got quoted between £300-£500 for a callout to replace both locks and handles. One locksmith explained to me it was a very tricky job, one that would require expertise and skill. “OR I could watch multiple YouTube tutorials, order the parts, and do it myself” I thought. “How hard could it be”.
Since moving in I’ve become a dab hand at flat pack assembly, there’s something very satisfying about wrangling Ikea pieces into actual furniture. I - and I appreciate this is not a widely shared sentiment - find it really relaxing. You can’t keep stopping to look at your phone, you have to give it your full concentration. And then you are rewarded with a new dressing table.
It’s the same sense I got when after a few hours I turned the keys and locked the doors, admiring my new locksmith skills. A moment of happiness, joy, recognition. There’s a term coined to describe these; glimmers.
Glimmers don’t have to be DIY based, they can be anything that sparks joy. Opening your curtains and unexpectedly seeing sunlight, the petrol counter landing exactly on £50, finding a yellow sticker on the exact thing you went into the shop for. When you start spotting glimmers, you’ll find them more and more, which has a positive affect on the nervous system. Or so the theory goes.
As someone who exists on anxious energy and can catastrophise at an Olympic level, glimmers help me talk myself back off the ledge I’m often dangling from. It’s free, effective, and easy. But could it be easier?
I’m often reading articles about the miraculous properties of various drugs on mental health; micro-dosing psilocybin, ketamine, DMT. But mushrooms? Yuck. K holes? Christ no. Having to become mates with the cosmic scousers who do yoga on Crosby beach? Count me out.
Surely we have the technology to be able to synthesise the feelings of glimmers, just a low level feeling of happiness and calm. Like the buzz after one glass of white wine but without the booze.
In case I have any scientists reading, here’s a list of glimmers I’d like to recreate:
Getting into fresh sheets after an “everything” shower
Scoring a goal and it not going to VAR
When the sun hits a mirrorball and throws light everywhere
Finding a chewy Malteaser
Petrichor
Spotting a lunar halo
Beating a traffic warden back to your car
Perfecting a winged eyeliner… on both eyes
Hearing the intro to Love Sensation
The sound of Duncan legging down the stairs when I come home