Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more
Lama El Hajjar Mar 18
Sometimes I feel it with absolute certainty:
I was born in the wrong century.
Not in the anxious rush of screens and notifications, but somewhere quieter… where evenings arrived slowly and the world smelled of ink, candle wax, oil paint, and horse leather.
In that life, I imagine waking up in a tall house with creaking wooden floors and long windows that open to gardens still wet with morning dew. I would wear linen dresses during the day and gowns heavy with fabric at night, the kind that whisper when you walk across marble halls.
The painting accompanying this piece is titled The Passage.
I painted it years ago, yet it feels like the visual echo of this essay. A woman in a crimson gown stands between worlds… behind her, the present; before her, a city that feels like another century. I have always imagined she is not only looking at a place, but at time itself.
And perhaps that is where the day in that imagined century would truly begin.
Perhaps I would ride every morning.
A chestnut horse waiting near the stable gates, impatient with the sunrise. I would ride through wide fields, the wind unravelling my hair while the world stretched open and silent before me.
No traffic. No alarms.
Just hooves against the earth and the distant call of birds.
Later in the day, I would return to a quiet studio filled with light.
Canvases leaning against the walls, some finished, many still waiting. Tables covered with brushes of every size, thin delicate ones for the soft edges of light, thick stubborn ones for bold strokes of colour.
My hands would be stained with paint, my apron dusted with pigments, the air scented with oil and turpentine.
And while I painted, music would fill the room.
Sometimes Bach, flowing like a cathedral built from sound.
Sometimes Vivaldi, bright and restless like spring wind moving through open windows.
And sometimes Beethoven, powerful and magnificent, shaking the quiet room with music that feels like courage itself.
Later in the day, I would sit under a tree with a notebook and ink.
Maybe in some quiet corner of Stratford-upon-Avon, where I would listen to William Shakespeare reading verses aloud… testing his words against the air like a musician tuning an instrument.
Or perhaps I would wander into a garden in France where Auguste Renoir is painting women beneath soft afternoon light. He would ask me to sit for a moment, just a moment, he would say.
The colour of the sky today is worth remembering.
In the evenings there would be balls.
Grand rooms lit by chandeliers. The orchestra beginning softly. Dresses turning like waves across polished floors. Conversations drifting between poetry, philosophy, and the newest play being performed in London.
I would dance, but not all night.
I would slip away sometimes to the balcony where the air is cooler and the moon watches the quiet gardens below.
And somewhere in this imagined century, someone would place a bow in my hands and teach me archery… not as a sport, but as a discipline.
Standing still.
Breathing slowly.
Learning that precision begins in the mind before it ever reaches the arrow.
In that life, time would not chase me.
Days would stretch long and golden. Letters would travel slowly across oceans. Artists and poets would gather around wooden tables to argue about beauty and truth while candles melted beside them.
Perhaps this is only a fantasy.
But sometimes I suspect that souls carry memories of places they never truly lived.
And mine, it seems, remembers ballrooms, horses at sunrise, music echoing through old rooms, paint drying slowly on quiet canvases, and the soft sound of ink touching paper in another century.
Sometimes, when the world becomes too loud, I sit quietly with a brush in one hand and a pen in the other, and for a moment the centuries blur.
And I wonder if perhaps I was not born in the wrong time after all… only carrying the spirit of another century inside this one.
If this reflection moved something in you, stay close… more words are on their way.