I always find the end of the year to be a place of the soul I return to — physically or in memory — without quite noticing. It is a time to revisit what was lived: sounds that stayed, faces the years kept safe, and above all places — those that shape us without asking permission. Today, memory led me to one of them. The only place in Praia capable of gathering friends, crossing generations, and blurring time. A space where the past and the future sat at the same table. There, between long embraces and overlapping voices, we said goodbye to the year leaving and greeted the one arriving. And those two hours tasted like a whole year lived all at once. So I return to this chronicle, written for a place the city eventually swallowed — but never managed to erase. The sweet memories remained, intact, almost stubborn. Loja Herculano — where the year tasted like a year embraced, and time, for a moment, seemed to learn how to stay.
I know. The subject of this column is supposed to be music — but this time I bring the space that shelters and radiates, every year, the most beautiful signs of friendship: bidding farewell to the year ending and already greeting the one to come. And wherever there is celebration, there is always music. More than a place, it is one of the moments of the year — at least on our Platô.
Every year, it is tradition. On the eve of Christmas and New Year's, around midday, people begin arriving at the old Loja Herculano — once a landmark of commerce in Praia.
What would bring a group of friends — some from childhood, others from different generations — to a shop-that-was-once-a-shop, still standing, stubborn and proud, with the same furniture and display shelves that smell of old wood, carrying everything from kitchen scales to baby baths, balls of wool, and second-hand vinyl records?
Precisely that capacity — the one Loja Herculano has always had — to hold, to preserve, and to protect everything within its walls. Above all, the friendship shared among everyone who passes through to say Merry Christmas or Happy New Year.
The balls of wool warm the air and mix with the embraces passed around freely. The baby baths remind us of the purity of friendship. And the records mark the rhythm of those two or three hours in which wishes for happiness are sent up to the skies for everyone who comes to be together — and to drink the famous Herculano beer.
Just as the sturdy wooden shelves keep Loja Herculano standing, may the spirit of friendship shared across these two days of the year remain preserved and faithful — protecting a habit that endures, and keeps enduring. Praia Maria.
Happy 2018, with much Peace and Music — above all for those who have been following this column.
Text originally published in the print edition of Expresso das Ilhas, no. 839, 27 December 2017.
