Better not to do it. I was going to tell the story of a New Year’s Eve, I think from the 80s, when I entered the new year by taking an herbal bath given by Fafá de Belém, a ritual from her land. It was a beautiful night, friends were gathering on Urca beach, at a time when the Umbanda and Candomblé temples followed the tradition of sending offerings in small boats to Iemanjá.
I thought it was better not to do it. With the politicization of the party, the suspicion that arose last week that following the cliché and entering 2026 on the right foot would be a reactionary move, I was afraid of the consequences. An herbal bath – a beautiful Brazilian belief to purify the mind to face the new journey – in our polarized times might make me suspect of being a persistent user, a left-wing thing, of herbs that come from the North.
I wanted to write a light column. Bringing together these end-of-year clichés, when Humanity stops for a few days conjugating hateful verbs and, suddenly cute, transforms into the population of “Pluribus”, the Apple TV series, where a band of good zombies take control of the Earth, all eager to help others, without ever lying or saying no. It would be a friendly column, cobbled together from the hackneyed texts of the season, the dreams that come true in the coming year and lentil recipes. Perhaps there would be the “good luck” of the taxi driver who drives like crazy and, at the end of the trip, wishes the frightened passenger a “Happy New Year to you and all your loved ones”.
In a certain paragraph I would perhaps tell the story of my dear rich friend who, because she is rich, does not follow those who spend their last night in yellow pants, in the desire that dressing like this the following year will bring them money. My rich friend is wearing red panties. The color would attract the ardent sex, currency missing from your commodity exchange. This New Year’s Eve, I advise you against it: will superstition work and your partner will think that this story of red panties is a communist seduction trick?
We are not too careful when it comes to welcoming the passage of time (the bay leaf in our wallet, a lure for money, today that could be racist). I would like to write about the hope that, goodbye to the old year, happy new year, it brings health to give and sell. Remember this tip to avoid poultry dishes, those poor things that are so delicious all year round and are canceled for dinner because they scratch behind them. But how can we maintain the tradition, eat only seafood, know how to swim against the tide, without some readers perceiving this as a provocation of ideological gastronomy – a subliminal message, at the turn of an election year, so that the dish on the table is, for example, squid?
Better not to do it. I’m just saying that today the party is yours, the party is ours, it belongs to the one who comes with good intentions of peace. Let’s be simple: Happy New Year 2026. If you want to turn the year around by jumping seven waves with your right foot, that’s your problem. Fernanda Torres would disapprove.
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