This month of January 2008.
A month of illnesses; a month of desperations.
I sincerely hope you are faring better than me, coping enjoying, staring down whatever life and the elements are chucking at you.
Even when I have felt less able than ever before to do what I think I do best (communicate), wonderful people keep coming to pierce the iron bars and platinum walls to shine shards of brilliant light into the darkness that has grown in this hole.
Our backs are up against this wall. For almost 2 weeks, it has been a totally new scare to Ana's health.
On that Friday morning May 4th last, when the news broke that Maddie McCann had disappeared, my first observation out loud was: "Now they are going to find that they have been on holiday in a land invented by Franz Kafka. Where it is paradise, until you have a problem, above all involving the police or the "health" service".
Nothing that has happened, or not happened, since in the McCann case has made me change my mind. I know too well how it can be here, unless you have a lot of money, or a bunch of well-placed, highly influential friends in the elite. There is an abyss, on the edge of which most of the population lives, passively, hoping for miracles, moaning, but doing nothing.
That's how it is. Government by the elite, for the elite, but never OF the elite.
I will only say that Ana will have a colonoscopy on Thursday morning because, with our friendly next-door neighbour's help, we were finally able to break through Kafka's labyrinth and because we could pay for it to be done privately. Our conception of the word "urgent" does not seem to correspond to most of local society's conception of it.
It is tense. Who knows?
So, that's enough of my bulletin. I have a kind of computer/internet sickness - physical and mental.
I work when I have to. I am trying to write, but it is much more complex than I had expected, besides the sheer difficulty posed by my state of mind. Today, I made progress on it, though.
This last year has eaten into my being, ripped chunks out of me.
If we don't have peace of mind, we have nothing.
As for photography, it has stopped absorbing me, stopped making sense. No new subjects. No new camera. It came close, I got really confused with which camera. Finally I took a reality check, realised that I don't need one as things are, but want one because of the consumerist pressure on myself to buy something "therapeutically". And I have lost my confidence.
Nowe, there are other priorities.
So, here are strange forms, shot between 24 December and 19 January on a few sorties into the city.
24 Dec: Strong midday sunlight/Lamp-post/Its shadow/Diagonal
28 Dec: Strong midday sunlight/Staircase at Carcavelos Beach/Après-surf/Diagonal & horizontal.
4 Jan: Bright midday sunlight/Iron staircase of Santa Justa Tower/Girl on stairs/minerals and shapes
19 Jan: Strong, low, end-of-day sunlight/Almost-full moon rising above Lisboa in the harbour/horizontal
I am sorry for not writing, not replying, not visiting you. You understand.
6 comments:
Here I am Stewart thats all I can say. I dont know what made me visit tonight, a call across the waves, sitting waiting with you, give my love to Ana I will be thinking of you both.xxx Auds.
Hope all went well with Ana´s operation Stewart..
You were so correct with your observation about this c....ry that we live in.I feel the same way as i always make remarks to my hubby that here, everything is virtual or rather like a magicland,everything is beautiful in apearance but...????
Best of health to both of you!!
Dear friend, as usual I'm speechless. I wish I could hug you and help you in a better way. But this world leaves us most of the time with empty arms. I send all my love to Ana and I hope everything goes well with her, and of course, with you.
Hugs and kisses. Both of you will be in my prayers. Love Ani
I care.
Your photos are just as stellar as ever, despite the lack of enthusiasm. Just know you are indeed cared about by many, far and wide. I hope the procedure went well (undergoing the same thing myself later this month). Hugs to you my dear dreamer.
I hope all is well. I hadn't checked your blog for awhile because we had our own little crisis starting on Feb. 3rd with my husband's parents. They are both OK now but it was close for my father-in-law for a couple of days there. I hope Ana is all right too. Thinking of you...
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