HOW THE NETTLES SWEETEN

We are holding something tightly in our hands- the bag in one hand, but we three schoolmates and girlfriends are also holding on to each other, and laughing at the camera. We are walking down the street coming back from school, probably high school, where we have just been admitted – because we are wearing black aprons with white collars. Three short little girls, pigtailed, Ninetta in the middle, showing off her shiny face and a huge smile. She is wearing a little coat tied crosswise in the front, the white collar of her black apron showing a little. Next to her is me, with an unbuttoned trench coat, and the other classmate… really, what was her name?

Based on old family photo albums, the writer and actress Efi Papatheodorou, now known as “Theopoula”, recalls stories, memories, snapshots of a life that is now different, but so vivid in memory, flooded with feelings of joy and sorrow, intensely tender and sometimes hilarious. What does a photograph ultimately encapsulate? What does it enclose in its frame? Just a memory in black and white, a little yellowed? Or a piece of life? The author gives the impetus and motivates us. Everything is sweeter, even the bitterness of life, if we just give it a try.