Anna & Scent Of Bread

Anna had the kind of life people admired on LinkedIn. A well-paying job at a global consulting firm, a tidy apartment in the city, tailored suits, back-to-back meetings, and a rising LinkedIn profile that read “Strategic Lead – Performance & Optimization.” But none of that made her heart beat faster.

Each morning, she awoke with the same dream lingering on her tongue like the aftertaste of honey. In the dream, she stood in a sun-drenched bakery. The shelves were filled with golden loaves, braided challah, crusty sourdoughs, and pastries dusted with powdered sugar. She wasn’t just buying them. She was making them—with her own hands. The warmth of the oven, the scent of rising dough, the laughter of a little girl nibbling a croissant—all felt real. Every detail repeated each night.

For weeks, she ignored it. Dreams are dreams, she told herself. Nothing more than the brain’s attempt to stitch meaning into chaos. But the dream came again—and again. It always ended the same way: an old woman with flour-dusted hands would whisper, "The recipe is inside you. Follow the scent."

One sleepless night, Anna typed “Bakery near the Seine” into her browser. She had no idea why she chose Paris—perhaps it was the poetry of it. She clicked through images of old boulangeries with tiled floors, copper pots, and sunlight cascading through tall windows. Her heart stirred.

That was the night she remembered The Alchemist, a book she had read in college and loved, though it felt naïve then. Santiago had a recurring dream too. A treasure buried at the base of the pyramids. A shepherd who risked everything to follow it.

Was her dream a calling?

Omens in the Office:

The following Monday, Anna arrived early for a leadership meeting. A junior analyst had brought pastries from a new local bakery. She picked up a pain au chocolat—and nearly dropped it. It tasted almost exactly like the one from her dream. She turned to ask where they were from, but the analyst was already gone.

That day, her computer froze. Her boss, for the third time, “forgot” she was on the promotion list. And during lunch, she overheard a conversation between two strangers on the street:

“Sometimes, it’s not about certainty. It’s about courage. The calling doesn't shout—it whispers.”

Anna stopped walking.

The universe, it seemed, was nudging her. Santiago called them omens.

A Leap into the Unknown:

She didn’t quit immediately. First, she signed up for a weekend baking course. Just to “explore.” On the first day, she burnt the sourdough. On the second, she cried while kneading brioche—unexpectedly overwhelmed by joy. On the third, the instructor said, “You have good hands. You feel the dough. That can’t be taught.”

That night, she made a list of fears:

• Will I lose everything?

• What if it fails?

• What if this is just a phase?

Then she made another list:

• What if I never try?

• What if the dream never stops chasing me?

She remembered a line from The Alchemist:

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Anna handed in her resignation three weeks later.

Following the Scent:

She flew to Paris. She rented a tiny apartment above a bookstore in the Marais and enrolled in an artisan baking course. She woke before dawn, learned to mix, knead, rest, and shape. She burned more loaves. She made friends with a soft-spoken Algerian woman named Leïla who said, “Bread is memory. You must bake with your whole story.”

The more Anna baked, the more alive she felt. It wasn’t easy. She missed the comfort of paychecks, the illusion of certainty. Some nights, fear whispered, “What are you doing?”

But then the dream would return. Now, she stood confidently in the bakery. This time, it was her own. People smiled. Children clutched sticky fingers. And the old woman no longer whispered. She simply smiled—and nodded.

Coming Full Circle:

Two years later, Anna opened her own small bakery in a quiet corner of her hometown. She named it “Le Coeur Levé”—The Rising Heart.

Locals were curious. “Weren’t you the one in consulting?” they’d ask.

“I still am,” she’d smile. “I just consult with dough and dreams now.”

She kept a copy of The Alchemist near the register. And sometimes, when young professionals wandered in with tired eyes and hopeful questions, she would hand them a loaf, warm and crusty, and say:

“The treasure isn’t out there. It’s wherever your heart is most alive. You just have to follow the scent.”

✨Reflection:

Like Santiago, Anna discovered that the dream wasn’t just about bread. It was about listening. Trusting. And daring. The treasure was not only a bakery, but the rediscovery of herself.