José Daniel Sandín, autor en ERRR MAGAZINE

The weight that silence keeps

José Daniel Sandín — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 21:00:00 +0000

They walked beneath the street scaffolding like ghosts rehearsing memory—each step a soft percussion against the bones of the city, against the gooseflesh of late Fall. Neon bled through the rain, and time, that old fool, folded itself around them like aluminum foil.

One hummed something that might have been love; the kind that tastes of moldy air and last chances. Another laughed—low, like the streetlights flickering to keep from fading further. And the tallest one said nothing at all, just carried silence like a letter never mailed.

They were not leaving or arriving—only passing, as if motion itself were a soft grace whispered against the fleeting wind.

The rain thinned. The false gospel of the neon dimmed. Somewhere under the scaffolding, water gathered itself and fell again, patient, repeating.

The one who hummed swallowed the last note like it had somewhere better to be. The one who laughed let it die in his throat. And the tallest one, carrying that sealed silence, felt it press heavier now—if only for a moment—as if the letter had learned the weight that silence keeps.

They slowed, though none of them would have named it, and they kept walking.

Photography by Rafael Delavequia Corona // Developed and scanned by Laboratorio Espiral

José Daniel Sandín

As a school teacher, composer, and photographer, I try each day to carry less interest in the things I already know, and more fascination for what I decide to do about the things I don’t know.

www.instagram.com/whatmy_i_sees/

La entrada El peso que guarda el silencio se publicó primero en ERRR MAGAZINE.

The strange mercy of being alive

José Daniel Sandín — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

The morning sat still in between glass and wind. Inside, the hum of a fan whispered against the silence—steady, indifferent, like time itself. Outside, the street glowed with the dull ache of ordinary life: parked cars, trimmed hedges, a bicycle leaning as though tired of waiting.

She watched it all from behind the pane, her breath fogging the reflection of a world both hers and not hers.

The coffee cooled untouched, the light shifted, and in that small room of metal and shadow, she felt the strange mercy of being alive: unnoticed, unneeded, but undeniably here.

She hummed softly herself, as if in reply, as if in the birth of new dialogue; maybe it was a mumble with a tender cadence. For what is a life but this, she thought: to be flung, to be struck, and still to sing.

Photography by Xiang Tiange

José Daniel Sandín

As a school teacher, composer, and photographer, I try each day to carry less interest in the things I already know, and more fascination for what I decide to do about the things I don’t know.

www.instagram.com/whatmy_i_sees/

La entrada La extraña misericordia de estar vivo se publicó primero en ERRR MAGAZINE.

Music On Tippy Toes

José Daniel Sandín — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

She was picking at its strings
uninterested and rather clumsily,
the way a crude macaque would
when grooming for nothing of interest.

Muted diminished thirds
wobbled
over open fifths.

She pointed to the center of the guitar
and said:

the music is there inside,
and it comes out on its tippy toes
to dance in the light.

Yes it does, dear.

And you,
my tiny earth of thirty-five pounds
are here inside,
doing nothing I can see
except for holding
the sum of the universe together.

Photography by Karen Anahi Olvera Vargas

José Daniel Sandín

As a school teacher, composer, and photographer, I try each day to carry less interest in the things I already know, and more fascination for what I decide to do about the things I don’t know.

www.instagram.com/whatmy_i_sees/

La entrada Música de puntitas se publicó primero en ERRR MAGAZINE.

When sound leaks into silence

José Daniel Sandín — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Without recalling if by accident music and its sound is written in the shape of rounded symbols, we often forget or fail to perceive that silence decorates the edges of a melody—and every one of its rounded notes in between—in each and all sides or limits of its circumference.

Music, it can be said, travels on the shoulders of pebbles dropped into ponds of still water.

What a melody can be, what beauty the melody can invoke, has often less to do with the strategic linear connection of sounds, and more to do with the allowance our ears can give to the gentle circular contraction of stillness and silence. The beauty we hear, is often the explanation we construct to replace the coincidence that occurs between a receding silence and the sounds that leak into it.

Photography by Xiang Tiange

José Daniel Sandín

As a school teacher, composer, and photographer, I try each day to carry less interest in the things I already know, and more fascination for what I decide to do about the things I don’t know.

www.instagram.com/whatmy_i_sees/

La entrada Cuando el sonido se filtra en el silencio se publicó primero en ERRR MAGAZINE.