I ate an olive in Greece. Two, in fact.

It’s a big deal because I haven’t intentionally put an olive in my mouth since I was about ten.

For nearly sixty years, I’ve told my olive story when people lean in to ask me, “What do you mean you don’t like olives?”

My childhood story usually silenced them.

I’m in the land of olives. For ten days, I was living under olive trees and only one hour from Kalamata. I made a quiet decision to eat one olive. Having had a half-century of narrative explaining why I don’t eat olives, I decided to tell one person. I wanted a witness.

Sitting in the round house surrounded by olives, I did it. I ate the olive.

“So?” my friend asked.

“I don’t think I’d ever order an olive, but… I don’t hate it. I didn’t gag.”

Olive Two on Hydra

A few days later, we were sitting on blue chairs in a small restaurant in Hydra. The waiter brought us a small bowl of wrinkly olives. I didn’t tell him the story of my big bowl of olives on a plum farm.

I looked across the table at my witness, “I’ll try one more. These look different.”

“They’re delicious,” she was already chewing one.

So I bit tiny bits of olive off the seed. I know my technique was probably against olive etiquette. And, again, I didn’t gag. I actually liked this one a little more. Not enough to have another, but more than the first that broke my olive-fast.

Retiring Narratives

So I guess it’s time to retire my plum orchard olive narrative. Not because it’s no longer true—it happened and it impacted my life in small ways. Maybe it’s no longer relevant. Certainly not necessary.

Sometimes events, occasions, and people help us recognize when we’ve outgrown a story and are ready to grow into another.

I ate an olive.

Also, during my one-on-one with our retreat facilitator Susan Deepam Wadds, I received the nudge my writing needed to transform my work in progress (WIP). I was afraid of applying Susan’s advice (who, incidentally, was also my olive witness), but I put on a brave face and, much like I did with the olive, I gave it a chew.

Unlike the olive, I loved the advice. And what a gift to chew on it during a retreat with a circle of writers to witness and respond.

I was struggling with my WIP, trying to put the pieces together. What I didn’t realize is that the WIP had outgrown its story. It needed a new layer, an additional narrative to hold it all together.

I’m transformed. My writing is transformed.

Transformative

I came to Greece with a red satin pillow case. Traveling with a pillow case is an ode to Mom, who—for as long as I can remember—slept on one to tame the bed head. The one I brought with me for this trip was one of hers.

When I pulled it over the pillow, one side began to split. Not at the seam. I can repair a split seam. The satin split because it’s threadbare.

It’s time to retire this pillowcase.

When I travel with a new pillowcase next trip, the satin will still be an ode to Mom. That won’t change.

My novel is changing, but it’s still an ode to the Eleanors of the world.

As for my olive narrative, the farmers did catch us in their trees eating their plum harvest and took us to their farmhouse for a scolding that involved a giant bowl of olives that I mistook for a bowl of plums. That story won’t change. But I’ve outgrown my long-lived aversion to olives, and the story has become something I no longer need to tell myself or others.

I came to Greece for a writing retreat. I’m leaving Greece tomorrow transformed.

Have you hung on to narratives, objects, and aversions long past their relevance? I’d love to hear how your stories about yourself transformed.

©Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserved. 2026