Scent Notes: Rich vanilla and tonka, Indian sandalwood and black oud, a drop of patchouli.

It’s dark outside when your alarm goes off, the sun just on the edge of the horizon. No, it’s not super early in the morning; it’s the beginning of the night. You keep “vampire hours,” as your friends like to say. But this is how you’ve always been. You’ve felt pulled toward the moon, the dark, the night, since you were a child. Your parents would send you to bed and check on you hours later and find you reading by moonlight, or just staring out the window and up at the sky. It led to a lot of issues (and a lot of caffeine ingestion) as you grew up, but you’re an adult now. You get to do what you want, and what works best for you. And that means getting up when it’s dark, seeing the sun rise, and going to sleep not long afterwards. Of course, there are some days when you must wake up and interact with all the sun-loving humans, but this is not one of those days.

You get out of bed, pull open the blackout shades, and look straight up at the moon. It’s a bright, full moon, so you light all the white candles you have on your desk and windowsill to light the way around your apartment. You head into the kitchen, which is just a few feet from your bed in your studio apartment, and start the very necessary pot of coffee. You never did kick the caffeine addiction, but you can’t get over the taste of luscious vanilla creamer mixed with a spicy coffee. You light more white candles, some incense, and sit down at your small desk to crack open your laptop. You’re lucky to have two part-time remote jobs, both of which offer flexible working hours and good pay. One involves admin work for a small startup, and the other is content and social media writing for a successful online business that sells bath goodies. Your own bathtub isn’t big enough for a comfortable soak, but you live vicariously through all the people who buy the products. 

Several tabs are still open, and you hit “play” on your music, letting Stevie sing you into your workday. You get up and pour a large mug of coffee, stopping to look out at the moon again. Part of the appeal when you originally looked at this apartment was the large windows and the fact that it’s on the top floor, giving you unobstructed sky views. Thankfully, blackout curtains allow you to block out the sun so you can sleep during the day, but you really don’t need much beyond a small kitchen space, a big, comfy bed, and a desk to work from. And surfaces to put candles on. You take a sip and feel the vanilla-flavored caffeine flood your body along with the moonlight, waking you up and preparing you for your day … er, night, of work. You sit in your desk chair, and you can look over and peek out the window, looking at that moon. You’re invigorated, energized, and ready to take on the work while the rest of the world sleeps, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Scent Notes: Rich vanilla and tonka, Indian sandalwood and black oud, a drop of patchouli.