It’s so easy to get caught up in “wanting”. Something more beautiful. More perfect. New. But aren’t the things that matter most in life those who wrote our story with us? They have scratches. Stains. Folded corners. Faded colours. Les traces d’une vie.

So why, when it comes to our faces, do we suddenly believe the opposite? Somewhere along the way, we became convinced that beauty should mean smooth. Spotless. Almost untouched by time. Mais pourquoi?

We talk about getting older as if it were a process of losing.
Firmness. Smoothness. Youth. Time.

But perhaps aging isn’t about losing or subtraction. Perhaps it’s about accumulating. Stories. Expression. Character. Laughter. Experience. A presence that something new — or a younger self — simply hasn’t had the time to build yet.

And you — what do you own that you love more because of its marks?

Olives are everywhere here in the South. Vraiment partout. 🫒 Whenever we go hiking in the hills behind the Côte d’Azur, we pass old olive groves, tiny terraced fields and those wonderfully crooked trees that seem to have been there forever. Les oliviers simply belong to the landscape.

And they mean so much more than food. Picasso’s olive branch became one of the most recognisable symbols of peace, and years later his daughter Paloma turned the beauty of olive leaves into jewellery for Tiffany. But here in the South, you don’t really have to look for the symbolism. You live with it.