I was an industrious kid. Before age six, I developed a custom perfume using ingredients that were available in my yard. I believe the formula involved harvesting an aromatic herb (perhaps mint), crushing it a bit, and putting it in water. The business did not take off, but here I am, all these years later, still remembering my youthful hopes of entrepreneurship.
I no longer dream of being a perfumer. If you asked me today what my ideal job would be, if I had to decide like I was five, I would choose flower photographer.
What about you? What joy do you feel pressure to monetize because from a young age you were asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, which you internalized as what you were going to do to make money and prove your worth?
Night blooms
When I started The Silent Sod, I intended to post more floral pictures because they connect with the sod theme and it’s a real passion of mine, but I haven’t had as much opportunity to do this as I would have thought. Basically, I suffer from too much inspiration when it comes to my posts, which is a great problem to have. But here today, in a week that has been filled with cleaning house and moving prep, I am going to share one of my guilty pleasures: photographing flowers at night.
Don’t get me wrong, flowers are very sexy during the day, but there’s something about…
the flowers at night hit just right by lamplight... delight
Wow, those are pretty, especially the purple one!
Given your early interest in the art of scents, have you ever read Tom Robbins' novel Jitterbug Perfume? I haven't re-read it in years, so I'm not sure how it holds up, but perfumery is one of the primary drivers of the plot.
Also, to answer your question, when I was a kid I was obsessed with clipper ships, though I was also about 100 years too late to actually go to sea on one, and I knew that clipper ship captain wasn't a viable answer to questions about my adult job prospects. So I usually said "astronaut," which was a popular choice in those heady pre-Challenger disaster days. Now, as a stolidly middle-aged adult, the idea of voyaging into realms of great risk (even if that risk is calculated) doesn't appeal at all.