Remember You're Here
(Everyday) Renewal and Ritual at a Threshold
My last letter to you would be something in the spirit of excitement or enthrall. I am passing through the threshold of an important moment in life, an important moment in my sense of self. By the time this letter gets to you, I will also be on the other side of a birthday. The finale of this decade enters plain sight.
And right now, I am searching for a feeling of renewal. I am in between the strong identity of a student and now the rest of things, all the many things I was deferring or waiting until this time.
In this search for renewal, I am drawn back to art museums. I see, there, a sense of sharpness that I am trying to bring out in my everyday.
I think back to the Year of Places, 2024, and recall what I focused on in the opening motions of that year at The Kreeger Museum. Back then, my reading was also The Architecture of Happiness. My visit to The Kreeger then combined values and view. What we value should be in our view, be made to be our view via design and intentional layout. Architecture uplifts the everyday. The Kreeger already had transportive features; its design as a (former) home and construction elements of granite balconies and flow from room to room all signal to me a kind of pacing that I admire. Maybe I am thinking of clarity or simplicity.
In this search for renewal I am drawn to last year. Around this time last year, Ole and I went to Pittsburgh, a hidden gem of a city. We went to the Carnegie Museum of Art.
A Work of Art Is Incomplete Until It Is Regarded
There, I was captured. The piece was: Ten Men by Susan Rothenberg. In my memory, I was there just some moments. Ole said she continued on into several rooms and found me again in the same place, unmoved.
What was it that captured me here? I love the size and length of this piece. It is expansive and the visual wash of fog-like motion brings an immersive power to it. I recall that only two of the ten men are visible. While creating it, Susan painted over some of the ten, if they were ever all there.
It has the same somber kind of feeling as a Philip Glass song, maybe “The Poet Acts” or “Études No. 5”, a sentiment of arrest and inward depth. Something that says all at once:
Find me / Know me / See me / Erase me / Keep me
I return to art museums, in part, because they offer a sense of place that is fully realized. Homes do this in that they reflect what we look forward to, what we aspire to. It brings to mind a favorite quote from Byung-Chul Han:
We can define rituals as symbolic techniques of making oneself at home in the world. They transform being-in-the-world into a being-at-home. They turn the world into a reliable place. They are to time what a home is to space
I shared this with you some time ago, but, again, it is re-invigorated. I am brought back to think of my routine and the ritual phrase I repeat to myself.
I think of my everyday. I start today with a promise, a hope or a plan: “Remember you’re here”. I call on the architecture of my daily routines and re-view the mantle piece of my commitment to every day: “remember you’re here”. In this motion, I think of today and remember what I can of yesterday and countless hours before, especially the ones full of wanting to be here, where I am now, a place fuller than before and a place more of myself than before. And I think of today. How deep can today be? What grace will keep it with me? What powers do I have? What powers do I have to hold everything close?
I may not have a place (or home) like the Kreeger, but I have made everyday cathedrals with my hours. I visit them in my search for renewal as I pass this threshold.
May I remember to cherish the hours of my searching, my steps into the night.
More soon,
Trevor
P.S. I’m going to make some changes to this letter series. It might be very soon; it might not. You may see this arrive as a new name.
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