I had a moment over the weekend.
These kind of moments don’t happen often.
I found myself sitting in the theatre. A cinema.
The credits of the film scrolling.
And there I was, still sitting.

When a film engulfs you without your permission.

I was captivated,
By the life of the most prolific Greek lyricist.
She was the words, the lyrics.
She was the pain behind the greatest Greek folk songs of the 50’s & 60’s.
A woman who escaped the fires of Smyrne with her children.
A woman who smoked, drank a lot, gambled in illegal basements.
A woman, who sold her lyrics for pennies to pay her seven month late rent,
Or to gamble it away.

Her life destructive, yes. Though lived.
She was a woman who lived and loved.

Eftyxia Papagianopoulou was a poet, a lyricist, a woman who lived a tragic life.
And she would be the first to tell you,
“I lived the life I wanted.”

She made think about how often tragedy, numbs us.
How often our pain, our trauma, our scars end our life.
Things happen.
To live, to continue to live, alive, is a choice.
Not an easy choice in the face of ruthless tragedy.
In the experience of despair and pain.
Though humans, like Eftyxia are indomitable.

Trauma has the capacity to transform us into a void physical body.
To emotionally submerge a human.
To live, is a choice.

What is more tragic,
To live a life of merciless tragedy,
Or to never live?

I know the answer for me.
What's the answer for you?

Many thanks to the Hellenic Cultural Society of South Florida for inviting me to be the host of the South Florida Greek Film Festival where I got to meet Eftyxia Papagianopoulou through the great film, My Name is Eftyxia.