This Is How Lisbon Looks

For Analia, for all of you.
I have just spent an hour looking back at the first 2 months of this blog. I know what I was looking for; for when it was discovered beyond Portugal.
There are various Mile Stones in that time and in all the time.
Those of you who have been here most of the time (I know you are there, even if you do not leave comments) will maybe remember. The photography, the writing. What was never really written is how I was struggling to adapt to a new home, a new life, which was no longer in my beloved Lisbon, but outside it.
It is incredible how 30 kilometers can be more like 300, or 3,000.
The pain of giving up my old life - losing it is more accurate - was a very strong reason for starting this.
I had no idea how strong it would become for its friendships. But I also did not foresee how it important it would become in supporting me for about 6 weeks from late July into September. People who found this place later, in the past few months can only know what happened, how it was here, by looking back and reading it. Also, none of you will know about the horror of what happened to me because of this blog at the beginning of October. It never appeared here, because I didn't allow it. But there was an exchange of more than 90 e-mails because of that event, keeping it off the blogs. I think we all learned something back in October - that the blog world, like the internet itself, has no rules, no morality, no right, no wrong. Use it constructively, it can be a force for good; do the contrary and it can destroy and plant fear & hatred.
So be careful what you do with it always - it is not heaven; it has only looked liked it was.
I use the past tense there because I really feel it has changed for the worse in the past 2 weeks. The system is playing with us, with our emotions, with our creativity. I myself have to endlessly sign into my account. I can no longer find the old way to post photos, which was best for me. I have no idea if what I'm writing here will be published, or vanish. They are stopping us from talking to each other here, being together, which has been the blogs' greatest benefit.
It is corrupted. There are people I communicate in private, by e-mail, on this and I know I am not alone in feeling this way. My only difference is that it comes at the worst time possible for me.
Don't be angry with me, Analia, or anyone. Please. You see, if I talk of giving up, it is not only because of this problem. it is because I also have some kind of life. A strange, indefinable thing, but it is the only one I have. And it is in trouble.
I try to be there for you, I will go on trying. Analia, you write of tears; you talk of Juan. But my dear sweet friend, I am telling you why I can try to pull you up when you have fallen. It is because I see you. I see what you are and what you have. You must believe me, you have far, far more than me. that is not jealousy. I have never been jealous of anyone, it is nowhere in me and I truly do not like it. No, I'm telling you a simple truth. It is the way it is.
From that search through those months of May, June & July, some things struck me: (1) I used a lot fo my best photos through that time, I think; (2) I was saddened because there was nobody to see them, or read me.
I honestly first appear on one post, which I urge to lok for and see and read. Make me happy by commenting on it, now in December.
It is on 8th June. It is titled "The Power of Pictures". I like that post. I hope she's OK.
And Jenny, I might have got this wrong, but I believe that you first arrived here 5 months ago today, bless you & thank you and 6 candles!