Inspired by a painting by Linda Murdock
When Art Finds You
Every once in a while, you come across a piece of art that feels less like something you discovered and more like something that discovered you.
That was my experience when I saw this painting by Linda Murdock.
At first, I admired the craftsmanship. The soft blue sky stretches endlessly behind a lone fish seated at a desk, surrounded by stacks of paperwork, a coffee mug, and all the ordinary objects of working life. It’s imaginative, beautifully composed, and just surreal enough to make you smile.
Then you look a little longer.
The humor gives way to recognition.
Lately, I have felt exactly like that fish.
Learning to Breathe Somewhere New
I’ve always loved the water. Swimming was once a competitive sport for me and has since become more of a hobby. But let’s face it, I rarely get in the water anymore. Pool memberships are expensive and time is limited. But when my body does hit the water, it helps me remember how to move without overthinking. Whether I am swimming or floating on the water, the noise in my head quiets, and everything feels as though it exists in the environment it was meant for.
That is why this painting landed so deeply.
The fish isn’t injured. It isn’t broken. It hasn’t forgotten how to swim. It has simply found itself in a place where all of its natural instincts suddenly require extraordinary effort.
Sometimes life does that to us.
Without warning, the landscape changes. The role you’ve spent years growing into begins to shift beneath your feet. The routines that once grounded you disappear. You continue showing up because there isn’t another option, all while trying to understand expectations that seem to change faster than you can adapt to them.
You’re still the same person, aren’t you?
Or is it that the water is simply gone?
Living in the Space Between
I’ve been thinking a lot about transitions lately.
Not the exciting kind that come with celebration and certainty, but the quieter ones. The ones where you can tell your life is changing, yet you can’t quite see what it’s changing into.
Professionally, it feels as though the map keeps being redrawn before I’ve had the chance to learn the previous version. Personally, there are the everyday responsibilities that never stop asking for attention. Children continue growing. Bills continue arriving. Health appointments still need to be scheduled. Dinner still has to be made. The world doesn’t pause simply because you’re trying to find your footing.
The strange part is that, from the outside, everything can appear perfectly normal.
You’re still working. You’re still smiling. You’re still accomplishing what needs to be accomplished.
Yet internally, you’re expending an incredible amount of energy simply trying to breathe in an environment that doesn’t feel natural anymore.
There Is Grace in Endurance
What I love most about Murdock’s painting is that the fish isn’t panicking.
It isn’t flailing across the floor or begging to be rescued.
Instead, it sits quietly at the desk, meeting the day as best it can despite knowing it was made for somewhere else.
That feels familiar.
There are seasons when resilience doesn’t look like charging forward with confidence. Sometimes resilience is much quieter than that. Sometimes it looks like continuing to show up with integrity even while you’re carrying uncertainty. Sometimes it means trusting your own experience when everything around you feels unfamiliar, believing that feeling out of place doesn’t necessarily mean you are in the wrong place forever.
There is dignity in continuing.
There is strength in adapting without losing yourself.
The Sky Beyond the Desk
The longer I study this painting, the more my attention drifts away from the fish and toward the enormous sky.
It occupies most of the canvas, almost as if it’s reminding the viewer that the office is only one small part of the story.
I find comfort in that.
Whatever season we’re living through today is rarely the whole picture. Work changes. Organizations evolve. Families grow. Children become adults. New opportunities emerge in places we never expected to look. Life has a way of returning us to ourselves, even if the route there is far less direct than we would have chosen.
I don’t know exactly where I’ll land next.
If I’m being honest, that’s one of the hardest parts.
But I do know this: feeling like a fish out of water doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten how to swim. It simply means you’ve found yourself in a place that isn’t meant to be your ocean forever.
And someday, whether it’s through a new opportunity, a different direction, or simply enough time passing for the tide to turn, I’ll find my way back to water.
When I do, I have a feeling I’ll appreciate it in a way I never could have before.
Painting by Linda Murdock, whose beautiful work managed to capture a feeling I had been carrying long before I found the words to describe it.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your take on Linda Murdock’s painting. Your discriptions of what you see and how the painting makes you feel are brilliant!
Thank you so much, I’d love to know what you think of when you view the painting.