It’s Sunday morning in Porto, and part of my heart is absolutely in Chicago. ❤️
Today is the Pride Parade there, and dear, dear friends of mine are grand marshals in the parade. I have photographed that parade for years, and I am so proud of the moments, joy, resistance, glitter, sweat, chosen family, and beautifully chaotic humanity I got to capture through my lens.
If teleportation existed, I would already be there!!
If the Concorde were still flying, I would have found some ridiculous way to get from Porto to Chicago overnight, camera batteries charged, probably wearing the wrong shoes, running on no sleep, and pretending that crossing an ocean after two full BSidesPorto days was a perfectly reasonable life choice. 😸
But I am here.
And “here” matters too.
The past two days were BSidesPorto, in my new home. I gave my Homelab workshop. I spoke about Cloud Misconfigurations. I met so many incredible people. I got to be part of something built with heart, care, and community. I am deeply honored that this year, the BSidesPorto team made me part of the team!
That is not a small thing. 🦩
Chicago will never leave me. It shaped me, sharpened me, gave me a community, gave me Pride behind a camera, gave me friends I will love forever. I’ll be back there in August, because of course I will. Chicago is still stitched into the lining of who I am.
But Porto is becoming home.
And this weekend reminded me that a new chapter does not erase the old ones. Sometimes life just hands you another city, another community, another room full of people doing good work, and says: “Here. Build here too.”
Yesterday was not easy. Before heading to
#BSidesPorto I had a bad bleed from my ITP, and I spent a lot of the day feeling out of it while still trying to show up, speak, teach, laugh, connect, and keep moving. My life, apparently, remains allergic to dullness. 🙆♀️
But I am still here.
Tired? Absolutely.
Grateful? Completely.
Proud? In more directions than I can count.
So today, I am sending all my love to Chicago, to my grand marshal friends, to everyone marching, watching, photographing, dancing, remembering, resisting, and celebrating!!
And I am sending so much gratitude to
#bsidesporto, to this new community, and to this strange, beautiful, exhausting chapter of my life in Portugal!! ❤️
Two cities. One very tired human. One flamingo probably judging my life choices.
And somehow, somehow, it all fits. 🏳️⚧️ 🏳️🌈 🇵🇹
#chicago #porto #CyberSecurity #Pride #infosec @sashatheflamingo@infosec.exchange #emotions
