dear [refuge],

The basic principle of etiquette: you need to know yourself so that you can forget yourself and focus on others (unless of course your ultimate goal in life is to be self-centered and egotistical...then by all means, continue to fret over you). And although I completely and utterly agree with this idea of living, I think there are definitely times when a person just needs to be alone with nothing to worry about but themselves.
I don't know how other people are, but I am someone who has to deal with problems on their own. I have no idea why, but I just don't enjoy admitting that something is going wrong with my life, so I often retreat to any place where I can find solitude and mull over whatever it is that's eating at my brains. Often times I escape through the magical world of music - releasing any and all emotion through my fingers as I pound them into the ebony and ivory.


I think that everyone needs a little something to help them escape.

ref-uge [ref-yooj]
–noun

1. shelter or protection from danger, trouble, etc.: to take refuge from a storm.

2. a place of shelter, protection, or safety.

3. anything to which one has recourse for aid, relief, or escape.

It was a story by Terry Tempest Williams (actually called Refuge oddly enough) that sparked this little thought - from her description of being alone on the Salt Flats in Utah:

"Only the land's mercy and a calm mind can save my soul. And it is here I find grace...Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self. There is no place to hide, and so we are found."

How profound, the idea that we find ourselves only when there is nothing else to look for.

And it's only once we've found ourselves that we can forget ourselves and go to work.