What the olive harvest taught me about time

Nobody in the grove was in a hurry, and by the third morning neither was I.

The nets go down before the light does. You spread them under the oldest trees first — the ones that lean like they are listening — and then you wait for the family to finish their coffee, because the coffee is not a delay, it is part of the work.

A tree gives what it gives. You cannot argue with it, you cannot schedule it, and the man who tries to strip a branch quickly bruises the fruit and ruins the oil. This is the whole lesson, and it took me a week of aching shoulders to learn it.

By Friday I had stopped checking my phone for the time. The light told us when to start and the cold told us when to stop, and in between there was bread, hard cheese and a green oil so fresh it caught in the back of my throat.