If I had a chance to live again, I'd undoubtedly ask to be born as a lowly farmer's son in Europe during the renaissance.
With hair full of dirt and eyes full of dreams, perhaps helping poor dear father out in the fields would be how my life will pass for a certain period of time. I’d grow up as a playful child, running across the fields with my brothers and sisters, playing like there was no tomorrow.
I'd spend my days skipping stones on lakes, getting mud all over my rags, and being the receiving end of many, many reprimands from my mother. She’d scold me one minute, then run her scarred hands through my hair while I slept at night.
My father would teach me how to fish and how to make nets and traps, and I’d perhaps learn to read at the local church with the other kids. Maybe a lass or two would catch my eyes during adolescence, and I’d look at them from afar with wistful eyes. But in the end, none would stick, as my eyes would south for something that lay furthest from settling down and having a family.
And in search of that unknown thirst, with a bag hung across my shoulder, I would decide to get lost into the night.
With a worn-out sketchbook and a couple of pennies to eat, I’d roam. Some days would find me working in barns of the wealthy in the highlands; other days, maybe I’d starve, trying to find ways to earn just a little bit of money, so that I could make my way towards the city of wonder that was Florence.
Maybe it’d take me a month, maybe two, or maybe six. Maybe it’d take me years to earn enough to hitch a ride to the city’s gate. But once I’d reach it, life, would feel like it was finally beginning to bloom.
I’d never become a famous painter, nor would I ever pick up a pen to write something worth remembering.
If I do get reborn, I’d merely like to be born as a silent observer during the renaissance, who would never be amount to anyone special, working in a dingy pub in some lower-end alleys just to get by, enjoying plays whenever fortune would look up, and sketching and writing sonnets that would get lost in lack of care.
Maybe I’d dream of a better life then. Maybe I’d dream of travelling and crossing the sea like some of the braver lads did. Maybe by then, I’d hope to settle down. But the streets of Florence and its ever-growing beauty, would never cease her call upon me.
So maybe with her, I’d stay; until all the hair on my head turned grey and my skin got wrinkled, with a bag of stories and unfulfilled dreams up my sleeves and no one but the empty streets of Florence to listen to them on cold, cold nights.
If I had the chance to be reborn, I’d like to be reborn as a nobody during the renaissance.
I’d grow, live and perish, with only the city of Florence being the sole witness to my insignificant existence.
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