Anchor In The Storm

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you find that one person in life—the one who asks for nothing, demands nothing, and wants nothing from you but your presence.

In any relationship—family, friendship, or otherwise—there is sometimes that one person whose arms are always open, no matter the time, no matter the circumstance, no matter what kind of day you’ve had. Celebrating. Grieving. Or just killing time with another human being you can trust. And trust—that’s a big word.

To be with someone who doesn’t need you to perform, to explain, to hustle for your worth—that’s rare. The embrace doesn’t come with expectations or conditions.

It just is.

That’s what this painting is about.

We are the #NoMatterWhatClub.

It’s about the feeling of being safe.

The feeling of finally letting go—of not having to hold everything together.

Of not needing to explain yourself.

Of not pretending.

It’s about the kind of calm that doesn’t arrive often in life.

A calm that doesn’t ask for words, doesn’t demand action, doesn’t pull you out of yourself.

It simply holds you, until the noise inside you stops.

I didn’t even realize how much noise I carried—how many anxious thoughts, restless movements, and the need to fill every silence—until one day, for the first time, the noise stopped.

And when it did, I didn’t have to do anything to make it happen.

I could just be.

This time felt different.

I’ve been on both the giving and receiving end of this kind of calm before—but this time, it wasn’t about that.

Normally, even when my body begins to slow, my muscles start to release and relax… my mind keeps racing.

I can’t sit still.

I need to move, to smoke, to talk, to do something.

But not this time.

This time, my mind went completely still.

Even the part of me that usually grabs at straws—grabs at anything to stay busy—couldn’t.

I let go.

I closed my eyes.

I felt the air.

I listened to my breath.

And for the first time, I wasn’t fighting it.

I came home after one of those rare moments—unexpected peace—and I couldn’t find the words to describe it.

So I painted.

The soft, earthy tones reflect the place where the stillness found me—something familiar, grounded, warm.

The layered texture is how I wrote the story—how it felt to settle, to soften, to breathe.

And at the heart of the painting is the stillness itself—the space where there’s nothing to fix, nothing to chase, nothing to fear.

Sometimes, safety isn’t something you create. It’s something you allow yourself to receive. I think we all need that sometimes.

A space to stop reaching.

To stop running.

To stop doing—and simply let the world fall away for a moment.

To be held—by another person, by nature, by memory, or by your own breath—and to know deep down:

Right now, I am safe. Right now, I can just be.

I could read this painting like a book—just like all of my paintings. They are journals written in texture and color—stories I don’t always have the words to tell.

Maybe I’m wired differently. And if that’s the case… for that, I’m grateful.

Because my words don’t always need letters. Sometimes I just feel something—a memory, a moment, something I saw or heard—and it moves through me until I grab my paintbrush. The way some would grab a pen to write it down, I record it with color.

And I love that I get to do this.

I love that I get to talk about it.

I paint feelings.

I’m not here to paint where I was or who I was with—

I’m here to paint how it felt.

I’ll tell you a little, just enough to set the scene.

But I want this to become your story when you look at it.

I created it for me, but I made it for us.

I hope it means as much to you as it means to me.