El Dreamdayproject En Mexico!

My new Dreamday office is called La Profética and lies in the heart of Puebla. They have good coffee, wireless internet and a fountain in the court yard. I might have travelled to the other side of the world, but this feels just like home. Time has come for a new Dreamday era. Live to you from Puebla, Mexico.


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Santa Taking a Break at Ekegården 19

Every Christmas my mum puts up this poster on the kitchen wall. It has been there for as long as I can remember. It is nothing fancy. Just a simple paper poster. And if you look carefully, you can see it is covered with small cracks, like an old vase. However, my mum did an impressive conservational work on it with tejp so you can hardly notice from a distance. After many Christmases it is very fragile and has to be treated with very much care.

Placing it on the kitchen wall is like hanging an important painting in a museum. It is done under concentration, by an experienced curator using old and reliable tejp techniques. To anybody else, this might look just like any other old and sad poster. Simple and cheap. But to me it is something special. To me it is a piece of art and I would not trade it for any other.



When I was looking at the poster this Christmas I suddenly remembered something that I think could be one of the first roots to my Dreamdayproject. Maybe it did not start in 2001 but something more like 1985. I was just a little girl, maybe seven or eight years old. I was sitting by the kitchen table with my dad. He was looking at the poster and then all of a sudden he turned to me and asked:

-Who do you think is the happiest person in the picture?

I looked at all the small Santa Clauses. Everyone seemed really happy. Some were cutting wood. Others were sewing clothes and wrapping up gifts. But to me they looked all the same happy.


Or wait... Everyone except for one. My dad pointed towards the back of the picture. Behind all the other Santas there was an old Santa sitting all alone. He was not wrapping up any toys or cutting wood with the others. He was just drinking coffee and eating pepparkakor.

And yes it was true. He did in fact have the biggest smile on his face...

This was long before I discovered coffee and I did not quite understand what my dad meant at that time. But in that moment I think my perception of the world changed a little. And I got something to think about for the rest of my life. What does happiness really mean?

And maybe I don´t have to be worried about my parents after all. They seem to be doing just fine at Ekegården 19...


Happy New Year to everyone and may 2009 bring lots of coffee and simple but beautiful moments to those who appreciate them.
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The Last Dreamday from Gotland-Thank you Visby And So Long!

Today everything is back to normal again. People are back at their jobs. The schools are open. And I am back in Dreamday business again. But something is different. I am in a new cafe. This time in Gothenburg.


I found this cafe last week when going to the movies with my old friend Frida. We were going to Hagabion in the afternoon and wanted to get a coffee before the movie. The café inside Hagabion was closed and we were both disappointed. We took a walk around the block and found this place called Starcups on Plantagegatan where I am sitting right now writing this story. It is not anything like Hedbergs Bok och Musik Café in Visby. But it is quiet and they have wireless internet. In other words: A new Dreamday hideout. Time has come to finally wrap up some old stories.


When I first came to Visby to work at Riksutställningar in August 2008 I had problems finding something to do in my spare time. I guess I was going through the same phase as I did during my first weeks in Albuquerque. When I got off work at five in the afternoons I had endless evenings with absolutely nothing to do.


This was during my so called pre-Hedberg-times, of course. It is in those moments that you sometimes make desperate decisions. Mine was to sign up as a volunteer at a small Cinema called Roxy on Adelsgatan in Visby.

Around the same date as I signed up, there was a short-film festival going on at the cinema. I was easily convinced to go. But for the first film I was late for some reason and had to sneak inside the dark theatre to find myself a seat. In the break before the next film I noticed I had chosen a seat next to an old man. And in the next second I saw his socks. It said ROXY on them with big letters. They were almost glowing in the dark. I don´t know from where it came, but all off a sudden I turned to the man and said: Nice Socks! That was the beginning of a long conversation about feet and a new friendship.




Roxy did not turn out to be my saviour, eventhough I was happily surprised that the sock man was actually working there. After some weeks in Visby, things took care of themselves. Like they always do. I found Hedbergs cafe by chance. I met many wonderful people. And my mind would once again wonder off into some odd project. May it be Karl-Gustav, Albuquerque, Visby, or even my old Gothenburg. It is all about finding peace in your soul to be able to think and write freely and to notice the people and the stories around you.

The autumn passed by quickly as new routines were formed. And my new path in life seemed to be pointing in just the right direction. Every once in a while a Dreamday question would pop out from my mouth at work. And every third week I kept going to Roxy to sell tickets and exchange a few words with the sock man.






This did not change my life all at once, but slowly, without even noticing at first, the Dreamdayproject started to follow me as it never had before. At Riksutställningar, Hedbergs, Roxy or wherever I was at the moment I could not look at any situation without seeing it through a pair of Dreamday glasses. Every situation became a potential Dreamday scenario. And every person was a Dreamday. Even the sock man.

So on my last day at Roxy it was his turn along with his machine-man-trainee Ulla, as well as Rosita, my co-worker at the ticket counter.

Rosita was the first one out on the dreamday catwalk. Her dreamday is a quiet day with good food and people around her.



Next one up on stage was Ulla. Her dreamday would be to read a new book by the author Jonathan Kellerman.



...and the sock man?

Well at first we went back to the machine room where he showed me all the tapes and the machines and how they worked. He told me he had worked as a machine man in different movie theatres all his life, except for the time when he was a UN-soldier a long time ago. He told me he had worked on the very last night at Röda Kvarn in Stockholm, showing the very last movie, before they closed down many years ago.

He told me stories about a dog he was taking care of from time to time who had sat down to poo in the middle of a crossing one time so that they had been blocking a street filled with cars.

And he told me about his mother´s chairs that had been sold on an auction after her death and that Hedbergs Bok och Musik Café had bought them and that one day he had found himself sitting on one of them...







And the Dreamday question?

I finally got to ask it of course. I have it all recorded, my evidence of yet another Dreamday... Not that I had to record it really, because I remember it by heart, and I think I always will. But when coming this far in the story I took the decision to keep it to myself.

When I was trying to write it down I just could not find a tool, small and delicate enough, not to hurt this vulnerable dreamday. That is why this one will remain a secret, at least for now.

And if you are curious to know, just take a look around you. The world is full of sock people. You might not notice until you happen to sit right next to one. When you throw out a random question and take time to listen to the answer, very carefully. However, sometimes these sock people can be difficult to spot. Because when I think about it, the last way to recognize them is probably through their socks.

Thank you Visby for all the people that I met and the stories and the secrets that you gave me.



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Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

I was born in a town with about 500 people in the Southwest of Sweden called Karl-Gustav. When I was young there used to be a school, a small supermarket and a post office there. Now there is only the school and the church left and some houses on both sides of the main street. Whenever I go back to visit my parents I love to take a walk on the country roads that I remember so clearly from my childhood. Every house and step on them is connected to a memory and tells a story that exists only inside my head.



My dad used to be the only foreigner in this little town and therefore more people would refer to me as the Greek’s daughter rather than my real name. I think they still do. When I go out for my walks there today I see a curious face in every window peeking out from behind a curtain. In the same way friends and boyfriends would be screened from head to toe, but from a distance. You never really meet many people when you go there nowadays, but still they know you were there.


My mother told me this story once about an old neighbor or ours that I keep remembering when thinking about my hometown. I can´t remember the man´s name, nor his face, but I know he used to live by the lake close to my parents. In the winter when the water would freeze he would go out for long walks across the lake.


But this one time the ice was too weak and he fell into the water somewhere not too far from land. He was shouting out for help for a long time and finally another neighbor heard him and pulled him out of the water. He was lucky and despite his high age he recovered quickly. However, after everything had calmed down after the accident, he asked his wife how come she hadn’t heard him shouting for help since their house was very close to the lake. Her response was: Well, yes, I did hear that someone was shouting for help but I didn’t know it was you…


Despite all this, my hometown has been a sanctuary for strength and inspiration for me. If I don’t go there every once in a while I become crazy. I start missing the loneliness. How my thoughts get free and creative. It is a hideout where every time I go there I start a new project. When I get back to the city again I feel I have a big bag of inspiration with me that makes me feel richer than before.


“…Oh, Albuquerque, Albuquerque”


About a year ago I went to stay with my boyfriend who was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the time. I hadn’t seen much of the US before, just some short visits to New York City and crossing the border to San Antonio, Texas while staying in Monterrey, Mexico a few years ago. I had no idea what to expect from Albuquerque, but I have always loved to travel and was quite excited to visit a place of which I had heard nothing more of except Neil Young’s song with the same title.


When I googled the city prior to my departure I saw pictures of a famous balloon festival and a tramway leading to a snowy peak of the Sandia Mountains. None of those things really caught my attention. I was more interested in what someone in Albuquerque would do on a Tuesday morning. What were the cafés like and what would a stroll on the streets of the city feel like?


When I got off the plane in Albuquerque I was welcomed by one of the nicest airports I had ever visited, and my boyfriend of course. It reminded me of Mexico, the colors, the food, but at the same time very different. We got in a car and drove off in the night to his place just off Central Avenue and University. My first peeks of Albuquerque were through a car window at night.


I can’t say I was very impressed. As a matter of fact, I was terribly disappointed. I can’t remember seeing one single person on the streets. There were huge highways, lots of traffic and some modern adobe style houses. Those three months I was supposed to stay in Albuquerque suddenly felt very long.


On my second day in Albuquerque it snowed. It would rarely snow in my hometown nowadays, and after reading that Albuquerque was supposed to be surrounded by desert, I was quite surprised. As a Swede a holiday destination is often valued depending on the temperature and the amount of sunshine. Albuquerque was not doing very well under these criteria.


A few days later the weather cleared up and I went for my first walks. Some days after that I borrowed the car over the day and I was able to reach even further. But I did not have a clue where to go. One day I was driving down Central Avenue (which makes out a part of the old Route 66) and cuts across the city, just like my old country road in Karl-Gustav. I remember how I did not know where to stop and so I just kept driving and driving, hoping something interesting would come up along the way. It didn’t. I finally ended up in the other end of the city and there was nothing else to do than to turn around and go all the way back again.


I also remember parking the car outside a Seven Eleven store a couple of times, mainly because that was the only parking I could find after driving up and down Central. Then I would just sit there looking at the people filling up gas or going in and out the shop. I was seriously starting to wonder what the other people in Albuquerque were doing…


I had heard that there were supposed to be a few good cafés in Albuquerque but finding them was difficult. They were not exactly located around a main city square like they mostly are here in Europe. But leaving them three months later was even harder. Already after a couple of café visits my perception of Albuquerque changed and my stay in the city started to evolve around them. Albuquerque turned out to serve as my new little hideout far away from any curious neighbor and my stay there would turn out to be one of my most inspiring periods in a long time.


“I’ve been flying down the road…”
There were a couple of places that altogether shaped the experience I had in Albuquerque. They were mostly cafés, a few bookshops and a bar. I would spend my days alternating between these places and in the end those three months turned out to go by far too quickly.


Java Joe´s soon became one of my favorite cafés. It is located just off 9th Street and Central, just a few blocks away from the Route 66 Hostel. I would go to Java Joe´s almost every morning bringing my computer or a book to read. Sometimes Fiddle Bill would sit and play the violin in the corner of the room. The atmosphere would be laid back and unpretentious. This inspired me to do something I had secretely dreamt of for a long time. So when returning to Albuquerue a few months later (Yes you will be wanting to come back...) I brought my old Russian accordion with me...


And some days later it was me sitting in Fiddle Bill´s couch playing some tunes on my accordion. I can still recall all the feelings that went through my head that day. At first it took me a while to get myself to even unpack the accordion. I went back and forward to fill up more coffee quite a few times before. Then all of a sudden I just put on my accordion and started to play. I don´t know from where I got my strength really. But I guess what convinced me in the end was the fact that nobody knew me in Albuquerque. If my little performance would turn out terrible I could just step out that door and never come back...


That didn´t happen luckily. Nor was it a musical revolution in any way. However, I felt like I had gone through a revolution on a personal level when walking out from Java Joe´s that afternoon. I don’t know if it was the city itself or the features of the café or a combination of all my experiences there that made me cross this threshold, but something happened to me in Albuquerque. I felt I could do whatever I wanted to and I did not give a damn what anyone around me was thinking anymore. I have been lucky to have traveled to many places around the world, but I don’ think I ever experienced such freedom that I did in Albuquerque.


I never really made any friends in Albuquerque so the regulars in the cafés would be the only people I would speak to during the day. A nod or a hello when entering the café or someone asking me what I was writing on my laptop was enough to make me feel welcome. These encounters were short but with no obligations or force. They made me feel left alone but not lonely.


One of my other favorite places in Albuquerque is the Chama River Brewing Company. Since Java Joes closes at 3 p.m. this would be a perfect place for the late afternoon. The place is really small and often full, but my boyfriend and I would often squeeze in there for a beer after he got off work in the afternoon. Chama River is like a small living room, where if you are one among the regulars you will end up having you personal mug waiting for you on a shelf every time you go there. Unfortunately I never stayed long enough.


Another one of my favorite cafés in Albuquerque is the Winnings Coffee Company on Harvard Street, just across the University of New Mexico.


I used to love to go there early in the mornings and have a seat outside and feel the first warming rays of sunshine on my back. You get a big cup of coffee or peppermint tea for a dollar and then you can just sit there in the sun and slowly wake up together with a group of strangers probably feeling the same way as you do. There is a strange connection created between people that wake up together like this and I can still recall their faces.


After half an hour or so in the strong New Mexican sun someone would usually tell me to watch out not to get sunburned and so I would go inside the café and unpack my computer. I would have another round of that coffee or tea and then my working hour could start. I think the longest time I stayed at the Winnings Coffee Company was from 8.30 in the morning until 5 p.m. It became like my little office and at five I was ready to leave for the day.



“…And I’ve been starving to be Alone”
I was lucky not to have a job during my time in Albuquerque. I made a few attempts in the restaurant business but with not much luck and so I was doomed to spend my days alone in these cafés. It took me a few weeks to realize how lucky I was. I had worked constantly until just a few days before my departure and my first days in liberty I was terrified. I did not have a single idea what to do and I was restless and seeking. I was unemployed and displaced.


But when the people in the cafés started to recognize me and I got my own favorite table at each place I felt I played a part in something, I don’t know exactly what. If I did not go to Java Joes for a few days they would start wondering where I had been. At the Winnings Café, Bradley´s Books would have a few titles waiting for me when I would return.


It was in this setting that my mind eventually started to work more freely. It felt like I had lost a chain of expectations on me. Every day in the café I started to get a new idea for a story or a project. The enormous mountains of old cars piled on top of the other in the junkyards around the city started to look romantic. The people around me became like characters in a story and I wanted to capture it all.


Back at home I can’t get Albuquerque out of my head. Whenever I feel a need to escape I think of the city. When I miss loneliness and creativity I wish I was sitting at Java Joe´s with a cup of coffee. It is in those simple moments that the big thoughts in life come to you.

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