I want to thank each of the 221 free subscribers and the 6 paid subscribers for your loyal support of the Distante in 2023. I wish you much love, health and peace in 2024. Or like we say in Minas Gerais, Brasil: tudo de bão!, which can be translated as ‘all the best’.
So, as a little present for you all, I've compiled a Christmas playlist with some hand-picked magical, moving, chilling and surprising songs. It's a little funky, soulful, folky and latin. Additionally, I wrote about a short musical Christmas story I experienced last year. It's right after the playlist.
In case you are hunting about for a good Christmas present, how about a subscription to Distante newsletter?
One of the most remarkable people I've met in London is an Eritreia-born wise woman who, lucky me, had happened to be my manager for a while in a gallery shop where I sometimes work.
It was Christmas-time. Probably the 23rd of December. The shop was crowded. The holiday-capitalism noise was everywhere inside those walls: the loud Jingle-Bells-music-style, people almost screaming at each other, and we, the staff at the till, barely could hear our voice shouting, “next, please!” to a huge queue.
My Eritrean friend eventually took the iPad in order to change the music. Instead of some holiday classic sung by some English language singer superstar, she picked an instrumental track I’ve never listened to. “This song helps me feel calm", she said. “I start listening to it, and then suddenly I’m not worried anymore”.
I glimpsed at the iPad to check the track’s name: it was Nostalgia, from Ethiopian superstar Mulatu Astatke.
I hope in 2024 we all find a song to turn to when we need to find our inner peace and harmony. As the Tibetan Lama and my guru Lama Gangchen Rimpoche used to say, inner peace is the most solid foundation for world peace.
Until next time, wishing you all a very happy holiday!
Eduardo Lemos
I’m Eduardo Lemos, and Distante exists as a place to explore the intersection of music and immigration, bilingualism and other topics alongside organically curated playlists.
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