A Go(o)d Place to Hide pt. I

I went to an art exhibit the other night called A Good Place to Hide, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. The exhibit was set inside one of the bungalows at the Lafayette Hotel, curated by Mashonda Tifrere, and there was something about the space that felt both intimate and expansive at the same time, like you were being invited inward rather than asked to observe from a distance. It didn’t feel like a place you had to “get right.” or “know what to do”. It felt like a place you could sit with something, even if you didn’t fully understand what you were looking at yet.

The very next day while I was in class, we were reading Psalms about finding refuge in God—about God as a hiding place—and that overlap felt almost too precise to ignore. The same idea, appearing in two completely different contexts, one artistic and one spiritual, both pointing toward something I couldn’t quite name but could feel. It made me pause on the word hiding itself, and how quickly it tends to take on a negative connotation, as if it automatically implies avoidance or fear, something we’re meant to move past rather than move through. And yet, there are moments when hiding doesn’t feel like retreat in that way at all. It feels necessary. Protective, even. Like stepping away just long enough to gather yourself before re-entering.

I think part of why that idea stayed with me is because I’ve been in a season that feels difficult to define in clean terms. The closest word I’ve found for it is wild, though even that feels incomplete. Not wild in the sense of chaos, but wild in the sense of growth that hasn’t taken a clear shape yet—something expanding in multiple directions at once, without a structure to hold it in place. I can feel that something is shifting in me, but I can’t fully map it yet, and that lack of definition has its own kind of weight.

There’s a physical feeling that comes with that kind of growth that I didn’t have language for at first, but it’s been becoming clearer. It feels like floating. At the beginning, that feeling is almost peaceful, like being carried somewhere new without needing to control the direction. There’s a softness to it, a kind of surrender that feels close to trust. But over time, that same floating starts to feel different. Not necessarily wrong, but unfamiliar in a way that’s harder to ignore. It’s now a sense of realizing that you’ve drifted far enough from what you recognize that you don’t quite know where you are anymore, and you’re not entirely sure where you’re going either.

And in that space, the idea of ground starts to matter more. Not in a dramatic way, but in a quiet, underlying desire to land somewhere that feels stable, or at least understandable. Because for me, ground has always meant some version of knowing and control. Clarity, direction, the ability to make sense of what’s happening and why. And without that, even growth can feel disorienting. Even expansion can feel slightly unsteady.

At the same time, though, there’s been another layer to all of this that doesn’t feel separate from the uncertainty, but somehow exists alongside it. The only way I’ve been able to describe it is that it feels like living in a prayer. Not in a formal or structured sense, but in the feeling of being carried, even when I don’t understand the direction. There’s a quiet sense of being held inside something larger than me, even things I’ve longed for, while I’m trying to make sense of what’s shifting. And that tension—between not knowing and still feeling held—has been difficult to explain, but very real.

I don’t think I had all of that clearly in mind while I was at the exhibit, but I can feel that I was carrying it with me as I moved through the space, as I stood there in front of different pieces, trying to take them in without forcing meaning too quickly. And maybe that’s why, when I found myself standing in front of one particular painting, something about the moment felt more present than I expected.

I had been looking at it for a while when someone came up next to me and asked, “What do you see?” And the question caught me off guard in a way that felt disproportionate to how simple it was. It wasn’t that I didn’t have an answer, it was that I didn’t know how to answer in a way that felt complete. It made me aware, almost immediately, of the gap between what I felt and what I could articulate, which is a space I find myself in often.

So instead of trying to interpret the piece in a way that felt performative or overly thought-out, I turned inward a little and paid attention to what was actually coming up for me at that moment. The first thing I noticed was that the women in the painting looked tired. That felt clear. But as I stayed with it, as I let myself actually look instead of just registering what I was seeing, something deepened. It wasn’t just tiredness. It felt heavier than that. It was weariness. This is the kind of tiredness that doesn’t come from needing rest, but from needing something to change. The kind that doesn’t resolve itself with sleep alone.

What lingered in my body was that I didn’t see this until I was asked. I had already been standing there, already looking at the painting, but I wasn’t fully present with it yet. It took an interruption, or maybe an invitation, to actually notice what was right in front of me. And that realization felt familiar in a way I couldn’t ignore.

Because how often does that happen? Moving through something, being inside of it, and still not fully seeing it until something slows you down enough to pay attention.

There’s something about that that feels connected to this idea of hiding, even if I can’t fully explain how yet. Maybe it has something to do with presence, and whether or not I feel safe enough to actually see what’s in front of me—or what’s happening within me. Because noticing requires a kind of stillness, a willingness to sit with something without immediately trying to fix it or define it or move past it. And I don’t know that I always give myself that kind of space.

So I keep coming back to the question: what does it mean for something, or someone, to be a good place to hide? Am I a good place to hide?

Is it about safety?
Is it about permission?

And where does that exist?

In God?
In art?
In presence?

 In other people?

Are these all interpretations of the same thing, just taking on different forms to show us ourselves?

I don’t know. But right now the clarity is in the question, not in the knowing.