Year of 365

September 13

Imagine working in a bakery...

Soft instrumental music playing in the background that can take you anywhere you wish, all while staying in the comfort of your own shop. 

In front of you on the table are a multitude of pastries and baked goods, all ready to be finalized and sent out to the front to be purchased by patrons lacking the flour coated apron that you adorn your torso with in an attempt to keep the powder off of yourself. Of course, that didn't work. There's a thick line of white around the outside of your apron. You're thankful that you didn't wear your good clothes to work today. Who knows what would have happened had you done that.

The smell of heat and baked goods is thick around you. There's the smell of the bread that's just coming out of the oven now, a golden crust on the top which makes a beautiful wreath that you yourself cut to look like ferns and roses along the top. There are the pies sitting across from you on the table, waiting for their turn in the stone oven, a special feature to your bakery that you had asked to be installed. There was something so satisfying about cooking with old methods. There were no machines allowed in your bakery. Instead, it was all done by hand. 

"Pies can go in now," you said to one of your workers and they nodded back to you, lifting the pans carefully up onto the wooden platform that would be used to set them down in the oven that was much to hot for anyone's hands. Even getting within three feet of the oven was enough for anyone to start dripping sweat. 

You yourself, weren't worrying with the oven today. You were working on a fresh batch of bread, and later, a cake that had to be done for three. This bread had been specially requested by one of your friends for a party that she was having, and of course, everyone knew that you had the best bread in the city. So, of course, you had promised that you would handle it yourself, and that's exactly what you did. 

The dough felt like home beneath your worn fingers. The gentle rhythm of lifting up the bread and forcing it back down against itself again and again was methodic to you and you shut your eyes, blocking out all sounds except for the gentle music floating in both the back and the front. It was quiet, as not to disturb your customers, but you knew that they enjoyed it. The swaying of bodies and tapping of feet was a dead giveaway. 

As you worked the bread, you started humming to yourself, drowning out the world around you and instead focusing on the here and now. Just you. It was almost a magical feeling when you were able to block everything else out. 

But of course, that couldn't last forever. 

A timer went off somewhere in the back and you opened your eyes again, smiling as one of your newest recruits nearly hit an older one in the head with a pan of cookies that were ready to replace the pies in the oven. Sure, you wanted time to yourself, and you missed the days of baking in your mother's basement while learning your craft. But you wouldn't change anything for the world.