Now I know what “tired” really means
Are you familiar with olive trees? Crete, the greek island where I live, is a place packed with two types of agricultural flora : olive trees and vineyards.
Eventhough the olive harvesters technology has really gone far, we continue to gather olives with almost the same traditional way : hands and nets. An exhausting procedure, indeed, but these days I start to understand its value.
The harvest starts somewhere around November / December, due to the hot climate here. Traditionally, the harvest is a festive gathering of the whole family, but nowadays, many prefer hiring workers to do the hard work for them. Since our family olive trees are not too numerous, we harvest them ourselves.
What if I’m tired to no extent. What if I dragged nets and carried heavy buckets rimming with olives. What if I lost my precious weekend and sleeping time, while on Friday I worked till 22:00.
I didn’t have any clients buzzing around me, I didn’t have anyone to criticize my work, I wasn’t stressed, I worked in the middle of a pretty field during a beautiful day, I tried and pushed and dragged, I laughed and sympathized with my parents’ constant angst : the selling price and quality of our olive oil.
It was different, and it was refreshing. Some handwork now and then is necessary for a person whose major problem till last week was the connection problems of her new FTP host.