The Olive Harvest

The olive trees in Nonna's grove had stood for three hundred years, their twisted trunks bearing witness to countless harvests. Marco spread nets beneath the ancient trees while his cousins positioned wooden ladders. This was the family's thirty-seventh harvest together, a November tradition as reliable as the seasons. "Gently," Nonna instructed, watching from her chair beneath the largest tree. "The olives must not bruise. They hold our history, our labor, our love." The family worked together—grandparents, parents, children—combing the branches with practiced hands, gathering the small green fruits that would become oil. They sang old songs, shared stories, paused for bread and wine under the Tuscan sun. "Why don't we just buy olive oil from the store?" Marco's younger sister asked, tired from the work. Nonna beckoned her close. "Come, feel this tree." She placed the girl's hand on the bark. "Your great-great-great-grandfather planted this. His hands touched this same trunk. When you harvest these olives, when you taste the oil they make, you taste his labor. You taste continuity. You taste family." That evening, the first pressing began. The mill crushed the olives, releasing their essence—bitter, peppery, unmistakably alive. The golden-green oil flowed into terra cotta jars, just as it had for centuries. Marco dipped bread into the fresh oil. The taste was intense, complex, nothing like store-bought oil. It tasted like sunshine and earth, like time and care, like family and home. "Now you understand," Nonna said, smiling. And he did.