Name Change

A Serious Thing Becomes Remember You're Here

Aug 04, 2026

My last letter was a moment into triumph. I have realized I am at the next level. With my dreams ready, I am stepping into the next moment of my life and make a great change. The evolution of this includes the next step for this letter series.

It matters what we call a thing - Solmaz Sharif

The name for this letter series was A Serious Thing for a few years. After my 100 days of writing to kick this off, I felt a more specific name was appropriate, and I was deeply inspired by a favorite poet, Mary Oliver. She is known for her simplicity, and I found a crisp and powerful weight to the reality I was living when I gave it the first name.

I think my attraction to that name came from a sense of powerlessness and wonder, a sometimes simultaneous feeling and sometimes very much not. I still resonate with this duality, the human experience is vast and as big as, if not larger than, life itself.

This is the poem where the line comes from, the line which I felt help me grasp two challenging realities: it is sometimes both hard and beautiful to stay alive. And in those moments are smaller moments that don’t seem to matter, when faced with the other size of life, the dynamic and taking parts. I believe beauty is the thing that justifies living. And sometimes beauty seems to be so feasibly laughable against the ruthless sway of the hard parts.

It’s a serious thing | just to be alive | on this fresh morning | in the broken world - Mary Oliver

That is one answer to the question.

There is audacity in the small things. The everyday heft of the small things: reading a book with no rush to be anywhere, a walk at dusk, the architecture of a new city, witnessing a friend try something new, ice cream, the late night thunderstorm, laughing with someone…

All are important, nevertheless / all the same / anyway

This old title was appropriate for getting started. It was directionally right, but I also find it limiting. Maybe you sense it too, thinking back to some of the letters before that are less “severe” or “punctual” on the low notes (this one on chairs and this one on luxury are favorites). A part of knowing that the small things matter means also seeing that the power of the everyday comes from an awareness of knowing you’re having a human experience and that it is enough sometimes to simply wonder, to take a second to realize you are someone in the whole theater of the world taking sudden or focused notice of something or someone else out there in the world with you. It is the encounter, and the witness of the encounter, that points to life itself. It is the witness and wondering if beauty is enough. This has been the heart of these letters to you.

That is the focus I want to better hold in this new name. And I reached it in my last letter to you.

I am more focused on how to continue here. A new name is appropriate for this. After all, August marks the anniversary of this letter series. This letter series to you is now four years going; thus, I make the grand gesture: a new name.

Remember You’re Here

This has been an original, personal echo for several years now. I spoke to it directly in this letter and then last month. I see power and richness here. I see a pious observation for the everyday, the place of miracles and the source of encounters that makes life rich, either in hard or bright ways. I see a beauty for the naked truth that we are all here, in a shared moment that is private and connected.

This is the original sound of my song: remember you’re here.

More soon,

Trevor

P.S.

My muse is starting to speak again, and I went on a buying rampage for books. New stack below. These, and the lovely gifts from graduation, mean I am happily swimming in words for a while.