I have always been amazed by people who can swallow one book after the other. Who can take up one at any situation, at the bus stop, on the train, and just read and disappear into another dimension.
I was never much of a reader myself when I was younger. The books that I read as a teenager could probably be counted on one hand. However, if there was a book that I did in fact read, I would keep reading it over and over, until I knew it by heart.
One of them was the Aristocats. I think I must have been reading it still, even when my classmates probably read thick and complicated books with no pictures. I was so into that book that the cats in the story became alive and I think it even changed my reality a little. I guess that is also why my own cat ended up looking like this:
When I was in secondary school the whole class would be dragged to the library every once in a while to choose a "bänkbok". This would be the only book that you could choose for yourself and I guess this was seen as a little reward or something from our teacher. But I thought it was horrible to go into that library. All those books with no pictures. I had no idea what to get and in the end I would just pick one randomly and go back to the class room.
With our own book of preference we would then sit at our desks and read for the rest of the lesson. I remember looking at all my classmates with their noses in one thick book after the other. After a while I would hear the sound of my neighbour turning the first page. I can still remember that feeling. I wondered if that book was so much better than the one I had chosen myself. I looked at mine once again and I realized it was number three in series called Vi Fem. Obviously I hadn´t read the other two.
I worked as a teacher a few years ago. Whenever I would see a kid sitting by their desk looking stressed over their task, taking a peek at what the neighbour was doing, I would remember exactly what it felt like. And I would want to sit down next to him or her and say: "Hey, I was just the same, but don´t worry, let them read and do your thing. One day you will find your own way to that story. And if you don´t, it probably wasn´t worth the effort anyway." I should have done it.
But as much as I would dislike sitting at my desk with a book in my hands, there would still be some very beautiful moments that I will never forget that were created from books. Maybe that is why I do love books today, even if I still might not be one of those who can consume them, one after the other.
A moment like that would be when one of my teachers would turn off the light in the classroom, take a seat on top of the teacher´s desk with her legs crossed, and read to us. We would light a little candle on each one of our desks and then we would just sit there and listen to the story. Slowly all kinds of images were created in my head. Of people and places that I had never seen before. I would hardly notice my classmates anymore, eventhough I do have a vague memory of some of the guys burning pencils on their candles in those precious moments.
At home, my mum would sometimes do the same to me, even when I was old enough to read myself. One time she read the whole Kulla-Gulla series. It consisted of maybe 12 books and was about the life of a poor, orphan girl in the 19th century. My mum would lie on her bed and read it to me. I would stare up on the roof and imagen Kulla-Gulla and everything that happened to her. And afterwards I could brag about it to my friends in school. "Have you read Kulla-Gulla? Yeah all 12 of them..."
Yesterday I was in Mexico City again. After alot of walking we came to a beautiful bookstore called El Péndulo in the Zona Rosa. I was really excited to go there. Seeing all the books around me made me happy. They reminded me of all the stories that exist and the passion that so many writers had put into them. But when my boyfriend started taking up one book after the other, a vague but familiar feeling would come over me.
We had a coffee inside the bookstore and looked at all the books. It was nice. Then all of sudden, on a table with books on sale, a yellow book with the title "Un día perfecto" appears. The author was called Melania G. Mazzucco. I had never heard about her or the book before, but the title was indeed striking for the Dreamdayproject.
After finishing our coffees I walked down the stairs and picked up the book. I read the first few lines on the back. Then a better idea came up...
I took a quick look over my shoulder. The coast was clear. I streched for a Dreamday Sticker in my bag and quickly stuck it inside the book. (I never glued it!) What could be a better place for my question than inside a book with the same title? I pictured someone stretched out in a sofa somewhere in Mexico City reading the book when suddenly the little sticker would fall out. The idea was thrilling.
To be on the safe side I also placed a sticker inside "El amor en los tiempos del cólera" by Gabriel García Márquez on my way out. Just in case nobody would ever buy that book by Mazzucco. I walked out of the bookstore with a smile on my face. Not a word wiser but alot happier. And so was another mission completed in Mexico City.
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