I’ve become invested in the concept of ‘glimmers’, those small moments which prompt a lifting of the spirits and a feeling of happiness and rebalance. I’ve been noticing glimmers for about a year now, defining them as ‘slices of joy’ without knowing the official term, coined by clinician and therapist Deb Dana in The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy and defined as the opposite to triggers.

I was recently driving behind a motorbike with the numberplate SL18 1CE, which, when stacked, read (to my brain at least) as ‘SLICE’. I think it was the universe’s way to remind me to carry on, not just noticing, but actively looking for glimmers, to recognise their cumulative benefit to the soul and consider what overall lesson they might be trying to teach me. Be awake, be alert, be alive.

In this spirit of openness, I booked tickets for a talk on encounterism at the 3rd annual Burford Literature Festival, created by Madhatter Bookshop owner Kim Harvey as a response to the cloying insularity of the pandemic. When the venue wasn’t where a marriage of Sat Nav and Google sent me, and I found myself working in jolly tandem with other perplexed humans to find the correct location, it felt pretty apt.

I was there to listen to performance artist Andy Field discussing ‘the possibility of spontaneity and shared, in-person joy’ that everyday encounters bring us – from contagious laughter in a cinema to the curious licence dogs give us to speak to strangers. If glimmers give us a momentary boost, encounters add the human element, a tangible connection that turns a brief fizz exothermic.

But first a glimmer. A large flatscreen TV behind the author with ‘PART 1’ emblazoned in large black font on a hot pink background, putting me in mind of Russel Tovey and Robert Diament’s eye-catching book Talk Art. Next, a pair of orange suede trainers on Field’s feet which threatened to take my attention entirely where it not for his warm, gently nervous and endearingly real energy.

In exploring the peculiarity and beauty of daily life, Field prompted me to internally declare a rousing ‘yes!’ in response to his manifesto for ‘the importance of real-world interaction’. I ended up beaming at him in agreement, running through a rolodex of encounters I’ve experienced and having an almost insuppressible urge to share them, as if this was the very point of being there.

I felt, though, that this particular encounter, despite resembling an open conversation, was actually an exercise in active listening. It may seem an obvious thing to do at a literary talk, but giving space to others isn’t, I’ve discovered, always natural to everyone, and that’s fine. Field would probably have welcomed me chipping in, seeming, as I like to be, a happy sponge for human behaviour, but now was not the time.

Instead, after the talk, I simply drew reference to our shared love of the colour orange by showing him my hat. I say show, it would be more accurate to say I waved it in the general direction of his feet to alert him to our effervescent matching wardrobe palate. He didn’t seem to mind, and even inscribed a note about it – and my incessant smiling – when signing a copy of his book for me.

A final note, the book has now had an encounter of its own. Having been left, foolishly, on a kitchen countertop in the proximity of a homemade candy floss making activity, it is now covered in glittering micro shards of sugar. I won’t be reaching for the Dettol wipes, it wouldn’t be in keeping with the spirit of encounterism if I did, and who knows I may get hungry on a train platform soon and lick it.