The Dream Day Poem by Jesús Herrera

A while ago I got a Dream Day poem from a young poet called Jesús Herrera in Puebla. It was written in Spanish and I was going to translate it into English once my Spanish had improved. But before I was finished with my course, a young journalist from Mexico City; Gabriel Infante, who had found Proyecto Zapato on Youtube, read my blog, discovered the poem, offered to translate it for me. It was of course an offer I could not resist.

Thank you Jesús and Gabriel for your contribution to the Dreamdayproject!

Here comes the Dream Day poem translated into English:


How dramatic can perfection be?

How monotonous or
ephemeral?

Could I contemplate the ether
of the fountains

and the grid of a dream
of exiles;

What justices that claim
nostalgia

without gods perception
or the empty chairs,

dismantle the wooden
coffins

and protects their smile against
melancholic beams

and shoes stories,
without laces on the asphalt

nor residual of slaves,
to abolish the oblivion in each

estimated steps,
reciting to new vicious

of wolfs and
veiled anarchists

in this battle against,
human structure,

dream day…
dismantle dictatorship
and all the utopias


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The Perfect Book?

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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The Dreamdayproject in a (Soap) Bubble!

It is Monday Morning. I have no boss waiting for me to show up at a certain hour. No tasks that were given to me to finish this week. Nevertheless, I woke up this morning feeling I had no time to waste. The reason why? A Dreamdayproject graphical image is about to take shape.

While visiting Mexico City last weekend I happened to find myself right in a scenario that I didn´t think was anything more than a beautiful image at the time. It wasn´t until I looked at the photographs a couple of days later, that I realized I was looking at an embryo to a future Dreamdayproject graphical image. The image I had tried to evoke for weeks but with no success.

It was right in the middle of the Zócalo in Mexico City. The big Mexican flag was swaying above me. The sun had just come out when I caught sight of something moving. They were soap bubbles. A woman was standing somewhere on the square blowing them. They were so beautiful, shining and reflecting all the colours from the city around. I noticed a young boy trying to hit one. Other bubbles danced around for a bit until they slowly drifted away towards the sky.

And suddenly it became so symbolic. Every soap bubble was like a dream. Both difficult to reach and impossible to take into your hands. Mesmerizing you with their beauty and fragility. You can either smash them as the little boy or admire them from a distance, carefully, as they slowly drift away from you. I guess as we grow older we tend to do the latter. Even with our dreams.

Anyhow, the image of the Dreamdayproject has now finally materialized. And the new mission can finally start: To create the long awaited Dreamdayproject website. So get yourselves prepared for a site filled with old and new dreamday notes, lots of video material and many Dreamday surprises!




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Dreamday Sticker Becomes Eye-Catcher in Mexico City

Mexico City is the second largest city in the world. It is situated on an altitud of 2240 meters and it has a population of about 22 million. It might sound as a big and angry monster. But a walk in the downtown of Mexico is no more hectic than any other capital city that I have visited.


Right in the middle of the Zócalo, the main square in Mexico City, stands an enourmous Mexican flag. On a sunny day you can see people creating a line in the shadow from the flagstaff, slowly moving around as the hand of a big solar clock.

Around the square there seems to be a special energy in the air that just makes you want to stay there hour after hour. Maybe that is why the Aztecs built their pyramids on the very same spot before the Spaniords destroyed them in favor of a Catholic cathedral still standing tall on one of the sides of the Zócalo. Or maybe it is because of its long history, of all the people that have gathered here for centuries. Or maybe because the air here feels fresh and high, even if Mexico City is supposed to be one of the most polluted cities in the world.

I was filming dreamdays right here, behind the cathedral in the summer of 2006. But this time around I did not bring my video camera. Squeezed into my bag were instead a couple of Dreamday stickers. Right before taking the bus back to Puebla I took up three of them and placed them rapidly along my way to the bus. The first one I placed on the stairs just around the corner of the opera house. Then the second one on a wooden wall outside the metro station Bellas Artes. And the last one on a notice board while waiting for the metro.

I jumped on the bus back to Puebla with a feeling of fulfillment. I had left a small trace of the Dreamdayproject in a city where nobody otherwise would have noticed I had even been there. And even if it is just in my dreams, maybe one of the 22 million people will make a stop for a second reading Cómo sería Tu Día Perfecto ? and think about the question for a second before disappearing in the crowds of the second largest city in the world.





























































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Beach or God?

I met these two guys in Mexico City in 2006. I was standing just outside the main square in Mexico City when I saw the two of them walking down the street. I suspected they were Jehovas Witnesses and I was of course very curious to hear about their dreamday.


The first guy is quick to respond that his dreamday would be to do what he is doing right now, which is to spread the word of God...

The I turn to the other guy. I ask him what his dreamday would be like. He responds something like this:

" Well, all those things that he said before, but also....just go to the beach or something..."

I love the honesty in that answer:-)


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