oregano with the wind

There's an oregano field just outside Rathdrum, ID that I pass when traveling to/from Sandpoint. the past couple times the herb has been in full bloom, a shimmering facade of purple over green topped only by the incredible smell.

In the house on Manito Blvd where I grew up, we used to have a patch of oregano growing in the garden. Situated as it was along the dilapidated sports court between our house and the back alley - which was the usual route home, whether from school or from our grandparents' house around the corner - I passed the oregano cluster sometimes several times a day, and it's a smell ingrained into my childhood, much like picking fresh blackberries and raspberries from the fence along the alley. Being a smell, though, it hits something different from the somewhat more abstract memory of picking berries - though I'm sure if I were standing along a blackberry bush, its smell would hit me similarly.

Anyway, the point is really just that the oregano field smells totally, absolutely, completely wonderful and is just one more reason I'm glad I started taking a different route between Spokane and Sandpoint, bypassing Coeur d'Alene for the Rathdrum Prairie with its rural golden fields and aromas.

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