In 2015, we moved to a bigger rented place. With our second child coming into our lives, we needed more space. A project that had been brewing in my mind for quite a few years without finding the time, reason, or incentive seemed to get buried in the day-to-day life challenges and fatigue.
We received the keys to the flat a day before moving in so that we could have it cleaned before bringing all our belongings. This would make cleaning the house less effective, so while we were packing the endless loose ends in our flat, we had a cleaning lady clean all the drawers, windowsills, floors, and walls.
It was pitch black, just before midnight, when I drove to the new flat to see if everything was ready for the movers who would arrive the next day with our boxes (210 of them). The first place I walked to, and I have absolutely no explanation for this, was through the door, to the right into our bedroom, and the window on the left. I just looked straight into the window rails.
I didn't go to the kitchen, I didn't look outside, nor did I go to either of the two bathrooms.
I just walked as if from another life time right to THAT one window, in fact that was the only window I walked up to. Then, with my torch, I pulled out the weirdest key that was lying in the rail gap. In the pitch dark, with only the torch in my hand, this is what I found:
A welcoming present in the new flat
This unexpected item I found seemed to have pushed me right back to my project, and the next idea for an image landed on my lap (or got stuck in my foot) in the next couple of days or so.
Friends came to see the new space we moved into. We had a big porch with lots of potential, but at the moment, there were only bushes of thorns, real vicious ones. Their scientific name is Onobrychis, and since they are ripe, dry, and at their hardest phase during August-September, they are the enemy of any bicycle and, of course, bare feet.
As friends walked out to the potential lawn area, if anyone stepped on the thorns, one after the other, they all cried out, "Ouch! Look at all the 'Eichmans' you have in your garden!" I couldn't believe it until I checked for myself and found on numerous Hebrew websites that this thorn specifically bears the name of the cruel torturers due to the pain it inflicts! WOW!
It all seemed to add up to 'signs' I couldn't ignore, and it gave me the incentive to continue my work, investigation, and creation.
Onobrychis - 'Eichman'
I picked a load of thorns from the garden (easy) and dried them till they hardened, and then after meticulous selection - (I shot the fittest...).
After the photograph, I threw them all away, since I didn't need them anymore...