Life isn’t black and white. But today I took my photo and went with a black and white version. I haven’t really talked about anything cancer related lately, but that was the whole reason that I started this project and this blog. I don’t like to think about cancer though. I run and cycle with the Huntsman Heroes to help support people that have cancer or loved ones with cancer. So it is often one of those things that lurks in the back of your mind whether you want to acknowledge it or bury it deep down under other thoughts.
I’ve been thinking about it today though. I was sitting in the lobby waiting for my dad to get out of an appointment and some people were talking. I wasn’t eavesdropping, at least not at that moment. There were some people talking in a foreign language (something slavic but not Russian) and I was eavesdropping on them to see if I could figure out the language (I couldn’t). As I was saying, I wasn’t even paying attention to them until one of them said, “Sarcoma,” or some other ‘noma’. And all of the sudden I was pulled out of what I was doing and into the mode of oh-no-not-another-one. I didn’t know these people, I didn’t even turn around to see who they were. I just had this visceral reaction to a word that I overheard when I wasn’t even paying attention.
I think that it is sometimes easy to lose track of what we are doing when we get pulled into the day to day things. I have days where I just struggle to find a picture and my focus is just on snapping a photo that I can post with nothing to say and some stupid compulsion to try to say something. But there are those days when you just get things together long enough to think about the real reason that you are doing some of the things that you are doing and trying to express that (no matter how inadequately). So I continue to try to put together a project that means something to someone other than me. Hopefully, you find something here.