Exhausted (Weekend Street/Reflections # 292)

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I took this photo several years ago because the person and the ruined bike made such a striking visual of destruction and exhaustion. It captures how we've felt at times. 

This has been a mentally exhausting summer of tests, scans, and the constant question of chemo or radiation and/or surgery. Two months ago, doctors found a rare cancer in my wife’s spine that required emergency surgery. Thank God, that surgery was successful. 

Shortly afterward, they discovered a completely different rare cancer in her left lung and a lymph node. Yesterday we learned they need to remove half of her lung on September 14. That’s two rare cancers discovered and two major surgeries in three months. 

This is actually her third bout. She had another rare cancer removed from her jaw in the late 1980s. A couple of AIs said the odds of this happening are like being hit by a meteor or winning the lottery several times over. Maybe there's an underlying genetic link, even though she has no family history of cancer? We are praying and hopeful everything goes well on the 14th and that she recovers quickly.

                                            Have a great weekend!

  Link reflections and/or street photography. 

Please refrain from posting posed pictures, portraits, animals, etc., unless there is a reflection. 

Click here for Street-Photography examples and inspiration.

Street photography is a genre that documents everyday life in public places. The public nature of the setting allows the photographer to take candid pictures of strangers, often without their knowledge.

Kaizen (改善) (Weekend Street/Reflections # 291)

 Sequoia National Park

The Giant Sequoia is a reminder that no one becomes extraordinary all at once. It happens quietly. A little more growth. Another season. Another ring. A scar from a storm. A branch reaching toward the light. Years pass, and what once seemed insignificant becomes something immense. That is the quiet wisdom of kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement. It isn't about dramatic transformation or becoming a completely different person overnight. It is about becoming just a little better, wiser, stronger, or kinder than you were yesterday.

We don't build a meaningful life in giant leaps. We build it in small decisions repeated over time: one more step, one better choice, one difficult lesson absorbed, one act of courage, one moment of patience. Even the scars belong. The tree doesn't need to erase the evidence of the storms it has survived. They have become part of its character. Perhaps that is what growing older really means: not becoming untouched by life, but becoming deeper because of it.

                                            Have a great weekend!

  Link reflections and/or street photography. 

Please refrain from posting posed pictures, portraits, animals, etc., unless there is a reflection. 

Click here for Street-Photography examples and inspiration.

Street photography is a genre that documents everyday life in public places. The public nature of the setting allows the photographer to take candid pictures of strangers, often without their knowledge.

Between the Moments (Weekend Street/Reflections # 290)

 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Life rushes past in a blur, but every so often, we get the chance to stand still long enough to notice it.

                                            Have a great weekend!

  Link reflections and/or street photography. 

Please refrain from posting posed pictures, portraits, animals, etc., unless there is a reflection. 

Click here for Street-Photography examples and inspiration.

Street photography is a genre that documents everyday life in public places. The public nature of the setting allows the photographer to take candid pictures of strangers, often without their knowledge.