Every word carries its origin like a scent.
emBaliment begins in balm - balsam, the fragrant resin the old world used to hold on to what it could not bear to lose.
To balm was to keep. To hold something against time. To keep it in memory. To keep it unchanged.
Some places do this to a person. You arrive, and the island begins - slowly, without asking - to preserve you. Not the body itself, but the way you inhabit your days.
Some places find you. Then they keep you.