“Glimmers” Are the Basically Free Gems That Make Any Home a Sanctuary — Here’s How to Make Your Own

Even though I’m in my 40s, I never take having a safe and comfortable home for granted. As a teen, I ran away from my abusive mother’s excessively cluttered house, experienced homelessness, and moved into queer punk houses — all to find freedom. And now as a queer, nonbinary adult in the United States, where gender nonconforming and trans people are under attack on every level, I worry about my future. But I know that I can’t live a life defined by fear and unhappiness. 

One of the small ways I cope with uncertain times is by doing everything in my power to make my home a safe and welcoming space that is full of “glimmers,” or small things that spark joy even on my hardest days. 

Most people are familiar with the concept of a “trigger,” which is some kind of stimulus, like a sight or sound, that brings up the memory of an upsetting or traumatic experience. Triggers don’t have to be “rational” to affect you. These emotional landmines are a part of life for many people with a history of trauma. 

“Glimmers” are sort of the opposite of triggers. Now widely understood in the mental health world, glimmers are small moments of pleasure that exist in everyday life. They cue to your brain and nervous system that you are safe. “Glimmers aren’t just about aesthetics or mood lighting — they’re somatic reminders that safety is possible,” explains Chicago-based therapist Bonn Wade. 

Glimmers offer moments that help you feel better, regulate your emotions, and affirm who and what you are. In my life, glimmers are reminders that I am safe and that I worked hard to have the home and the life I have. They can be anything from a morning coffee ritual to, in my case, intentional, affirming decor around my home that reminds me that I am in a safe space that I built for myself.

Glimmers are vital for the LGBTQ+ community because of the complicated relationship many have had with the homes they came from. 

“Home hasn’t always been safe for queer and trans people,” Wade says. “For a lot of us, it’s where we first learned to mask or shrink or make ourselves more acceptable or even palatable. So, it’s a big deal — a quietly radical thing — to create a space that reflects who we really are. When we build in glimmers, we’re not just rearranging furniture, hanging art, or placing a plant near a sun-lit window — we’re actually sending a message to our bodies: You belong here. You don’t have to hide anymore.” 

Glimmers are a key way to spark joy and hope around your home — something people in marginalized communities need especially right now. Ofelia Saba Ramírez, an associate marriage and family therapist who specializes in working with queer and trans people who have experienced trauma, explains that for “queer and trans people, especially those navigating trauma and our hostile political climate, glimmers in the home aren’t just pleasant to have — they’re tools for survival.” They can help to remind your nervous system that you’re safe, loved, and that you do belong — even when the world says otherwise. 

Glimmers generally aren’t anything big or elaborate. My favorite ones seldom are. Glimmers might be stickers sent by a pen pal, stuffed animals instead of throw pillows, toys from a quarter machine arranged in a bowl, or smashed pennies from the zoo.

On the windowsill in my kitchen, I have my own glimmers. Nestled among succulents, Kewpie dolls, and stained-glass ornaments my neighbor made, there is an empty PBR can with a pride flag sticking out of it. An odd glimmer for someone (me) who doesn’t drink, but it makes me smile every time I stand at my sink to do dishes. 

The can is a souvenir from a long-distance partner’s visit where we spent an afternoon grid-walking a now-gentrified neighborhood to find the punk houses of our youth where I found safety, community, and acceptance for the first time in my life. After finding the house, now as gentrified as the neighborhood, they bought PBR at the corner store where the hippies used to scoff at us punk kids. They gave the majority of the six-pack away, but I kept this one tin can, which is a vase in my kitchen; it’s a glimmering reminder of where I come from, and the life I have made within — and because of — queer community.

I got divorced last year, and one of the first things I did when my ex-partner left was start to redecorate my home with new wall art. This art is mostly “worthless,” appraisal-wise, but to me it’s invaluable. Everything I own reminds me that queer bodies, and specifically trans bodies, are magical and have always existed — no matter what the current government says. 

My living room is lined with bookshelves filled with all my favorite queer books that helped me form my sense of self and identity. The books signed by authors, many of whom are now friends and colleagues, are some of my most prized possessions. Even as queer book bans take hold at a terrifying pace across the country, these books remind me that our stories cannot and will not ever be silenced.

“Glimmers do more than offer small moments that keep us as queer and trans people afloat — they root us in the lives we’re actually building, not just the ones we’ve survived,” Wade says.

In the last few months, the glimmers I have in my home have grown to include a handful of items that I was able to rescue from my mother’s house after her death. Despite our over 20-year estrangement, when she died I was court-appointed to clean out her home and in January I went back into my childhood home for the first time since I ran away as a teenager. 

It was a difficult ordeal, and surprisingly I found my childhood bedroom closet untouched. I had to clean and sanitize what I found, but brought home some glimmers from an otherwise turbulent childhood: some 1980s My Little Pony toys, Pound Puppies, and other small figurines, along with the molded dog-shaped switch plate from my childhood bedroom where I spent years praying to not really be gay. They walk the razor-sharp line between trigger and glimmer.

These items, more than anything, are a tangible reminder of what I escaped, and how hard I have worked to have the life I have now. In the home I have built today, these “glimmers” are bittersweet — and a reminder that even when things are hard, there’s a whole world on the other side of the hard times.