A Baby Pool of Glitter

The nine women in the cir­cle were scrib­bling, col­or­ing, and chat­ting, a mind­ful art exer­cise. The dis­cus­sion strayed to our favorite ele­men­tary school mem­o­ries. Parachute day in gym class. Rectangular piz­za and corn Fridays. The dress up cor­ner. When some adult entered the class­room push­ing the art cart. Amy piped up, “Remember the baby pool filled with glitter?”

Um, no. I cer­tain­ly would have remem­bered that, were it offered at Providence Elementary. Amy elab­o­rat­ed. “There was a baby pool filled with col­ored glit­ter in the cor­ner of the art room. You would scrib­ble on white paper using a clear glue stick and then press it into the glit­ter pool to reveal your masterpiece.” 

I can ful­ly imag­ine the pure joy of that expe­ri­ence. Adults rarely love any­thing the way kids love glit­ter. And a whole pool of it? Absolute mag­ic. 

I’ve been in need of more mag­ic in my life recent­ly. An over­ly filled work sched­ule and too much adult­ing has left me feel­ing pret­ty drab, or what­ev­er the oppo­site of a glit­ter pool is.

In the men­tal health world, these micro moments of mag­ic are called glim­mers. These small, fleet­ing moments act as pow­er­ful cues to our ner­vous sys­tem that, no mat­ter how bru­tal or grief-filled our cur­rent lives, awe and joy and safe­ty exist as a par­al­lel. The more we notice glim­mers in our day, the more we reshape our brain and ner­vous sys­tem to notice and embody the glim­mers around us. 

Once we make it a habit to notice glim­mers, then we prac­tice sit­ting in the moment with con­nect­ed aware­ness. This is called savor­ing. If a micro moment brings cur­so­ry joy or peace, then savor­ing glim­mers reshapes a brain into being more open to mag­ic and less prone to numb­ing out or default­ing to the mun­dan­i­ty in life. 

I have, of recent, been imag­in­ing a glit­ter pool in my mind to safe­ly store my glim­mers, allow­ing me to return to them any time. Currently in my glit­ter pool? The lemon, aspara­gus, and parme­san pas­ta my dad made (it tast­ed like spring come alive). Every song on Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poet’s Department. Cold pros­ec­co with fresh chunks of pineap­ple float­ing in it. The smell of my dog’s paws. Yellow iris­es. Magenta peonies. Baby zin­nia sprouts pop­ping through the soil. Rolling my fas­cia. Reading on my porch in my swing­ing egg chair. Fluffy clouds and blue skies. 

It takes prac­tice and com­mit­ment to be awake in a world that leads us toward con­tin­u­al numb­ing out. But the glit­ter pool awaits, if we will only open our eyes. 

What are your cur­rent glimmers?