The Park Bench Book in Edinburgh: Marcus Aurelius on Princes Street

The Gray Morning in October 2017

October in Edinburgh is a study in damp stone and charcoal clouds. I had reached the absolute end of my endurance: my small graphic design studio had collapsed into liquidation, I had been evicted from my flat in Leith, and the shame felt like boiling water poured down my throat.

I walked through Princes Street Gardens toward Dean Bridge—a notorious hundred-foot drop over the Water of Leith. My mind was completely made up. The cold stone parapet seemed like the only logical conclusion to my catastrophic failures.

The Bench Near the Ross Bandstand

A sudden downpour forced me to pause under the canopy of an ancient beech tree near the Ross Bandstand. On the wet wooden slats of the bench lay a water-stained Penguin Classics paperback: *Meditations* by Marcus Aurelius.

Someone had left it behind, protected inside a transparent ziplock sandwich bag. Sticking out from the pages was an index card with handwritten blue fountain pen ink: *'To whoever finds this: I left this book here because it saved my sanity when my son died in 2014. If you are hurting today, turn to Book IV, Section 3.'*

My hands were trembling as I unzipped the plastic bag. I sat on the wet bench and turned to the marked page.

The Emperor's Prescription

The words struck me like an electric shock: *'Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores and mountains... But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.'*

Marcus Aurelius—the Emperor of Rome, who buried eight children, fought Germanic wars in freezing mud, and faced plagues—was speaking directly across eighteen centuries to a broke graphic designer in Edinburgh.

I realized that my bankruptcy wasn't me. My lost apartment wasn't me. The external world could take my money, but it could never take the fortress of my own mind unless I willingly surrendered it. I closed the book, turned around, and walked to a homeless shelter in Old Town to rebuild my life.

I still have that water-stained paperback on my desk in Glasgow today. An anonymous human being took thirty seconds to leave a book on a park bench and inadvertently saved a life.

Words possess supernatural power. When you write on Solas Haven, you have no idea who will read your star in the middle of their darkest night. Leave your beacon behind. It might just save a universe.