Every period in my life has a specific smell.
There is a period at age 17 that I remember with the smell of perfume I used to put in my hair,
at age 20 with the smell of tobacco,
a period with the smell of redwood trees,
another with the smell of a dog.
As soon as I smell these smells, I will immediately remember that period. Each period and the emotions that came with it.
This long period, which ends today, was accompanied by a mixture of thoughts, emotions and experiences, in which the general mixed with the personal and vice versa.
Not a day passed without distress, every smile on the face was a smile of mourning, moments of laughter and landing in great darkness.
Perhaps as the years pass, a period of two years will become nothing compared to 50 years, but I will not be able to define this period with a smell. I will not be able to smell a smell that will remind me of the war period, the period when I thought every day about the kidnapped and their families. For me, there will be no smell to war, because it is too long and drawn out, and smells mark a short and fleeting period, like the seasons.
Every winter I go out into the rain when it is asleep. I let it wash over me, close my eyes and memorize the feel of it on my skin, the smell, the sound. I memorize it in my memory, so that I can remember it when it is gone.
Today – I closed my eyes to hear the laughter and shouts of the crowd in the squares, I opened them to see the families smiling and crying. I memorized the sensations so that I would remember what it feels like when the heart opens, when you reach the finish line and the body rests for the first time, before the start of the next race.
I will not remember this period as a smell – I will remember the heart that opens, the body that relaxes after such a long period of not having air to breathe.
Eitan Mor, Gali and Ziv, Matan Angrest, Omri, Guy and Alon, Rom, Ariel, Maxim, David, Eitan Horn, Segev, Bar, Matan Tsengauker, Nimrod, Yosef, Avinan, Eviatar and Elkana – you are at home.