I'm standing here with my precious bottle of oil, turning it over in my hands, and it looks nothing like those I've passed without thinking on supermarket shelves so many times before. This one is special. The oil is thick and fragrant, the color almost green—and because I myself gathered the olives that made it, it has become a treasure.
This bottle holds so much. As I look at it, I realize I'm smiling. I'm smiling at the small story of this bottle... Who would have thought we'd pull it off?
It all started last summer. Six or seven of us, sunburned faces, coming back from the lake at the end of a Fede e Luce camp day. In the chatter, someone says a word. It bounces from mouth to mouth. An idea blooms: "Hey, what if we went to do some grape harvest together?"
But grape season came too fast for our pace. September had already passed, and the plan seemed postponed to the following year. Meanwhile, each of us was turning over an idea that grew less vague by the day: we wanted to organize a period of "rural" work with the kids. We wanted to live together for a while. Many of our community members spend entire days at home or with nothing to do, slowly getting used to the idea that there's nothing they can do.
One day, suddenly, the phone rings. A voice on the other end asks excitedly: "Isn't this the olive harvest season?"
We hesitated for a moment—this work seemed duller than our beloved grape harvest. But soon the project took shape, and we began to move seriously to make it real.
Filippo offered us a farmhouse with an olive grove attached. In a series of meetings, pizzas, and emails, we worked out the details.
So on Monday, November 3rd, Pietro, Valerio, Claudio, Stefania, and Roberto—joined by Alessandro, Daniela, and Cristina—began our week at "Bicoca," between Cura di Vetralla and Viterbo, in the Etruscan countryside of Lazio. The days unfolded, dense and beautiful. Usually we rose early, had breakfast together, and then set out to our own olive grove: sixty-five trees and countless black and greenish olives falling onto nets.
Slowly, each person found their role. Roberto and Valerio handled the lower branches with the smaller rakes. Claudio and Pietro worked the upper reaches with longer rakes, and for the most unreachable olives, someone performed daring acrobatics—one foot on a ladder, the other balanced precariously on a branch tip. Stefania became expert at "cleaning"—removing leaves from the olive heap before putting them in sacks headed to the mill. From tree to tree, we moved the nets, spreading them carefully so we wouldn't lose a single olive. Everyone did their part and grew skilled at a small task, with chatter, laughter, and jokes.
If we weren't exhausted, we'd have a light lunch under the olives, then work a bit longer after eating. Otherwise, someone would finish early and go cook for everyone.
Field work taught us to live at natural rhythms. We rose early because after the first afternoon hours, as the sun set, we couldn't work anymore. But this didn't stop us from ending our harvest days in front of indescribable sunsets, or even under the first stars.
In the afternoons we explored the countryside and saw everything: containers for drying tobacco leaves, cattle ranches, grain-planting and harvesting machines.
The rest of the time went to simple, ordinary tasks that, in light of everything we were doing together, took on a beauty all their own in their everyday simplicity: cleaning, tidying, cooking, washing dishes, gathering firewood.
Three semi-tame wild boars helped us every day dispose of organic waste.
In the evenings, growing more tired each day, we had a moment of reflection. In front of the fireplace, we read a passage from the Gospel that spoke to our day's work. And so each evening, Jesus spoke to us of the nature around us—the grain, the wine on our table, the oil we were helping to make, the hardship of labor, the joy of being together. In the darkness, everyone found space to say what they'd loved most about the day and to place everything—even what hadn't gone well—into the Lord's hands before saying goodnight and heading to rest.
Of course, the strain of living together made itself felt too. There were turn-taking struggles for the bathroom. Someone shouted when others wanted quiet. Someone ate the supper food before supper. There was homesickness. There was tension when rain on Wednesday stopped the work.
But our days were good because of all that, too. And the rain and other forced pauses gave us chances to be together still—visiting the artistic treasures of Tuscania, or chatting by the fire while cooking something on hot coals, or eating fresh popcorn while watching a gripping documentary about whale rescue.
I watched a human and humanizing environment take shape—one that let all the kids not only learn how olives are harvested and other practical skills, but also less visible things: the importance of committing yourself to something, however simple, doing it steadily and with care, finding your own way of doing it, the joy of being together while sharing work and a home.
I see in my mind Claudio reciting poems inspired by olives. Roberto complaining. Pietro picking two olives and smoking three cigars. Stefania coming to your bed at night because she wants her mom. Valerio praying at sunsets. Giovanni working and having fun.
Sunday was a feast day for us. Friends came to share how this experience ended: the menu varied, but the king of the table was, of course, the oil!
- Cristina Ventura - 2003
