Tag: Hope

Last Of The Dying Leaves

by Ebb Then Flood

‘Last Of The Dying Leaves’

Took this one looking up through the tangled branches of a tree to the clear, pale winter sky, with a few reddish leaves just hanging on.

The tree in question is next to an Auckland hospital.There for a follow-up appointment yesterday with the surgeon who handled my cancer treatment last year and who performed life saving surgery. All going well despite a fair amount of ongoing pain – the surgeon was happy with progress, but confessed that he had no certainty at all that I would make it through.

In this picture I am reminded by nature of the bleak time when I was tangled up and literally just hanging on… but there was always the expanse of a sky above to reach up to. Hope is everything in such a situation, so very powerful…

Only Clinging On (Shell Game)

by Ebb Then Flood

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‘Only Clinging On (Shell Game)’

Tiny mussels and barnacles, thousands of them, cling to a rock in the sea, which in turn is enveloped in the tide’s swirl.

Fragility plays relentlessness in this particular shell game.

Sometimes I feel like one of those small molluscs or crustaceans, insignificant and only clinging on to life.

Those are the days that you hold on to whatever hope you have, and it doesn’t matter what it is…

Ebbed Out, Not Effed Up

by Ebb Then Flood

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‘Ebbed Out, Not Effed Up’

So, the tide has ebbed and gone out.

Your flow has flown, so to speak.

Maybe it’s a rock bottom.

Or perhaps you’re just lying on the mud and silt; motionless, hanging onto your ropes and reflecting only yourself dimly.

But, you are not f**ked up, not finished yet – the next tide will come to re-purpose you – just you wait and see!

Fog Inside My Head

by Ebb Then Flood

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I can remember where I took this picture.

It was in the hill country just north of Taumaranui in the central North Island, at a highway rest stop.

I  can describe the weather.

There was a fog, like smoke, opaque and wispy at turns, drifting through the pines and scrub, leaving all damp to the touch.

But I truly know what fog feels like.

For it was in my head, in a troubled time, when there was no clarity and no respite and for a brief period, no hope.

And even though I have climbed out of the worst of it, there are still moments, small intervals, when the fog returns from banishment.

Very frustratingly, I might add.

Then I remember that the fog must lift, and the sun come through, as it did a only a few minutes down the road…