Can you leave a part of yourself in a place?
Not just any place, of course.
But some especial place.
There are a few spaces on this earth which have touched me at a special time.
The memories which they hold because of my companion.
Shelter provided in my solitude and loneliness.
But can you leave a part of yourself there?
Is there a way you can become a permanent part of a place?
Etched in its memory, as it is in yours?
Something which the winds of change and the sands of time cannot erode.
Throughout the ages, men have sought to build monuments to themselves in those places
which they have touched.
Some have endured. Their architects and artists long since forgotten. Perhaps never known.
As for me, I will cherish being just one more pebble on the beach,
known only to myself
and the one who loves me enough to have placed me there.
And this one act, and that small stone in a big place,
Will mean everything to me – I – having lost myself – in the place.
Ray Brown
