Box 57 & Beyond
Eastern Oregon is full of Juniper trees. The berries are fragrant, and often used to make gin. I heard Kim Stafford (the new Oregon Poet Laureate) tell a story recently about a kid from eastern Oregon who went to western Oregon to go to college. He kept in his pocket a matchbox full of sage and juniper berries. He said that when life got too hectic and he felt homesick he would take it out and have a sniff. I like this.
Sage and Juniper are fragrant, and I like the associations, but they don’t connote HOME for me. I’m not sure, though, what does. What fragrance, confined to a matchbox or Altoids tin (what Kim Stafford passed around at the poetry reading I heard this story from) would capture HOME for you?
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